The Science of Growing Apart

36- Bribe

"Thanks for meeting with me on short notice," I told Shiloh as we met for breakfast on Friday. "How are your classes going?"

"Pretty well," she said with a short nod as she tore a corner off her croissant. "Did you find any more news about Silas?"

"Not exactly, but I do need to talk to you about the article. Jay Barkley somehow found out that I'm writing an article about his dad and he's pretty unhappy about it," I said to her. I'd spent the last two days thinking about how I was going to explain the situation to her and still wasn't sure if this was the best way. I knew she'd definitely be unhappy about it.

"What can he do to stop it though?" she asked me, her brow furrowing in displeasure.

I took a bite out of my egg sandwich and then said, "He wants to pay you off. I told him that you probably wouldn't be interested in that, but-"

"I'm not," she interrupted me, her eyes narrow and her lips pinched into one thin line. "He can't buy my silence."

"The thing is, Silas isn't going to run for re-election," I informed her slowly. "That's what he said, anyway. Jay asked for a meeting with you and your lawyer- it can be Micah, or you can choose your own- to talk with him. It sounded, to me, like he's more worried about his own career than he is about Silas."

"I don't care about his career."

"And you shouldn't," I assured her. "This is all your decision, if you want to decline the meeting, that is up to you. If you want to keep going with the story, I'll have to transfer you over to another journalist though, I'm realizing that I'm too biased on the topic and it would totally discredit anything that we say."

She nodded, as if taking in all of the information, and then took another bite of her croissant. "How much is he willing to pay?"

I just shrugged and said, "I'm not sure."

"For my entire life, I've wanted to expose this son of a bitch," Shiloh told me. "And now that I finally can, it won't even do anything to him. I mean, people will know that he's a raging piece of dog shit, but he doesn't care about that. All he cares about is money, so really, if I think about it, maybe taking his money instead of his reputation would actually hurt him more."

"Yeah. Maybe."

"What do Casey and Eleanor think? Do they want to take the bribe?" she asked.

"I haven't talked to them about it, but I imagine they'd be completely fine with not publishing the article," I answered her, tipping the pads of my fingers on the side of my hot coffee mug. "You can discuss it with them if you want."

"How long do I have to think about this?"

"Take as long as you need."

She inhaled deeply, letting her chest puff out and then cave back in on a long exhale. "Okay. I'll think about it."

"I'll back you no matter what," I assured her as she finished her breakfast and started packing up her things.

"Thanks, Josie," Shiloh said with a faint smile. "I have to get to class, but I'll call you."

"Sure. Have a good day."

I finished my breakfast alone, texting Casey good morning and going over my schedule for the day on my phone's calendar. My days were usually pretty relaxed on Fridays at work, unless there was a big case that needed urgent coverage. I hadn't heard of anything going on, so I was planning on spending most of my day obsessing over every little detail of my date with Casey.

I wasn't sure if I should mention the Jay situation because I hated keeping secrets, but I also didn't want it to ruin the date I had planned. I didn't think his reaction would be dramatic, but it would just mess up the vibe of our date if we started discussing his long lost half-brother and how he was trying to bribe me into silence.

I would tell him on Monday, if Shiloh didn't talk to him before that, and I would tell Eleanor too. Neither one of them were thrilled about the article anyway, so the idea that this all might disappear would probably be good news for them.

I didn't want to spend my energy worrying about it when there wasn't much I could do anyway. Instead, I focused on writing down a grocery list for the date tomorrow and everything that I needed to pack. Thinking about the date and how much effort I put into it was both exciting and stressful, because I wanted everything to go perfectly.

Maybe I still felt like my relationship with Casey was so fragile and even though I'd known him for so long, navigating a new romantic relationship was always weird. Our first kiss was everything I could have ever dreamed, and more. But that didn't mean that this whole process was going to be movie magic perfect.

Maybe I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and wake me out of this dream, so I had to make everything perfect to minimize the chances of that happening. Which was why I worked so hard, asked my dad for help to plan the perfect date. One that Casey wouldn't see coming.

He said he wanted to hear me tell him that I loved him which, I absolutely did, and I wanted the perfect backdrop for that moment. Even though he already knew that I loved him and this was more of a formality than anything, I wanted to make it special.