Page 58 of Marrying Mr. Majestic

I mumbled a thanks and called one out to Miki, also, before turning to Silas. “Ready? We have another three miles to close the loop.”

He nodded before waving to the ladies and following me back to the trail.

We walked in silence for a few minutes before he broke it. “She seems nice.”

It was such a cliché thing to say I could only bring myself to respond, “Mm.”

A minute later, he added, “Pretty, too. Really pretty.”

“Mmhm.”

After a few more minutes with nothing but the crunch of dry leaves and tiny pebbles under our boots, Silas finally threw up his hands. “She called you babe! She… touched you. She hugged you. Twice. She seemed upset that we got married. Is there… is she… Jesus fuck, Waylon. Are you upset?”

I reached for his hand and pulled him toward me, away from the far edge of the trail where I’d spotted a familiar brown pattern. “Not really, but there’s a bull snake right there which might make you upset.”

He yelped and jumped into me, shoving me farther away from where I’d pointed and several yards further along the trail with a funny kind of skip shuffle.

A chuckle escaped me as I tried to reassure him. “Not venomous. I promise.”

“Aren’t all snakes venomous?”

“Definitely not. Haven’t you heard of a garter snake?”

Silas gave a full-body shudder. “Are snakes common around here? First, the guy at the boot store mentioned them; now, you’re pointing them out on a simple trail hike. Do I need to wear steel pants?”

“Yes,’ I said, trying to keep a straight face. “I mean… it’s not a bad idea, really.”

He frowned at me in confusion while I pretended to consider the idea more fully.

“They’d be heavy and probably chafe a little,” I continued. “But Lake Sports sells this Squirrels Nut Butter stuff that?—”

Silas shoved me hard in the shoulder until I had to take a few quick steps off the path to keep from falling. I couldn’t hold back the laugh.

“Shut up,” he said with a soft snort. “Ass.”

“Steel pants,” I hooted. “Steel. Pants.”

“Nut butter?” he challenged.

“Hey, that’s real. Ask Jackson or Lake. They sell it to cyclists.”

As we continued down the trail, I noticed Silas keeping closer to my side. His face was pensive, and I assumed he was still ruminating on the snake sighting.

“Snakes are pretty rare,” I finally admitted. “That’s probably the only one you’ll see all summer, honestly.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, turning and pinning me with those fucking eyes. “About Eden. About our marriage.”

The way he said “our marriage,” like it was real… like it was something that was ours alone, something special and shared… made my stomach clench.

“I worry I upset her,” I confessed. “I should have been the one to tell her. She shouldn’t have found out from town gossip or whatever. I’m an ass for not thinking of telling her myself.”

I could tell he was surprised by that, and I wondered why.

“You didn’t text her or anything?” he asked. “I thought you two were close?”

We moved into an aspen forest, where the sun was dotting through the leaves and brightening the narrow white trunks. This was my favorite part of the trail.

“She’s been busy with work. She had the Tuck Fest race a few weeks ago in North Carolina, followed by some sponsorship meetings in Chicago, and then the big photoshoot in Zion National Park, which is why she flew into Vegas… and why I was there, too, I guess. She’s currently training hard for the GoPro Mountain Games down in Colorado in a couple of weeks and helping create social media buzz for the AdventureSmash exhibition. I assumed she was busy, but the truth is, so was I.”

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