"Shiloh took the deal. She really took him to the cleaners too, the Barkleys really don't want this story getting out. If you ask me though, it's a matter of time before another one of his victims or children come clean about the kind of piece of shit Silas Barkley is. I doubt he'll be able to muzzle every single one of them forever."

"I'm honestly kind of disappointed," Casey admitted to me, stabbing into the stuffed shells that Eleanor made for dinner. "I spent my entire life wanting nothing to do with the guy and I know that the story going public has a real potential to drag me into his mess, but he deserved to be called out. I'm glad Shiloh got her money, but doesn't it piss you guys off that he's just going to continue on like normal now?"

"Like Josie said, somebody else could come forward. You could come forward, if you really wanted to," Eleanor reminded him, begging Auden to take a bite of her pasta. She made the mistake of putting broccoli in the cheese stuffing and Auden, as perceptive as ever, spotted the green flecks right away.

This suggestion clearly didn't please Casey because he didn't want to come forward. He wanted Silas to be punished for all the shit he caused so many people without becoming known as a senator's love child. Not when he was building his own career, making a name for himself that was completely void of Silas Barkley. He was a top scientist, youngest of his ivy league class, winning awards and growing cool trees. He didn't want to be associated with it, so of course he couldn't come forward.

"At this point, we just have to hope that karma catches up to him," Eleanor said with a shrug. "There's no use in staying wound up about things we can't control. We don't focus on how unfair this has always been, we just focus on our own world and let that be enough."

"Yeah," Casey said with a sigh. "You're right."

"In better news, Boris got fired from Kripke," I said in an attempt to lighten the mood. I knew Casey would be a little bummed to hear that Shiloh took the money after her lawyer's meeting with Jay and Silas's legal team that morning. It was a lot of money and she even negotiated higher than their original offer, so she was happy with her decision. Still, it meant that the whole story would stay in the dark until another source would come forward.

"Boris, the other crime writer?"

I nodded in confirmation. "It was all very dramatic. Kim assigned me a murder trial to a case that he originally covered. Anyway, he got all pissy but then Kim told him flat out, in front of the entire office, that I was a better writer than him. I make the victims feel real, I make them personable and I do really good research. He's gotten too comfortable these passed couple of years and always underestimated me. So he freaked, told Kim to fuck off, and then stormed out."

The whole incident happened two days ago, but I'd been waiting until the meeting with Shiloh was over so that we could celebrate without her decision looming over our heads.

I could still picture the way Boris's face turned bright red, the tantrum he threw in front of the entire office. Kim remained calm, explained to him all of the ways I was a better writer than him. I was more creative, I had a better work ethic. All things that I'd known since I started working there, and it was about time Kim was catching up. Of course, I didn't say any of this. I hid behind my desk's divider until he stormed away.

After lunch, he came back and tried to start working again but by that time, Kim already had security box up his things and revoke his key card access to the writing floor. It was all very sudden, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't see it coming. Boris had all of the pride in the world and none of the talent to show for it.

"It means that I'll be taking on a lot more high profile cases, which is amazing. I have a meeting with my boss on Monday to negotiate a pay raise too. The downside is that we're down to one crime writer and until we find another one, I'll be doing twice the work," I explained to the table. It was Micah's turn to bargain with Auden to eat her stuffed shells across the table. His go-to method was bribery, offering her ice cream for dessert if she took some bites. (This did not work)

"That's so amazing, Josie," Casey beamed beside me with his hand squeezing lightly at my thigh. "You're going to crush it. You'll be taking over the company within the year."

"Becoming the CEO of Kripke is in my five year plan," I said jokingly, feeling a burn in my belly at seeing the proud look in Casey's eye. That shit was addictive.

"You could do it if you set your mind to it," he assured me with a boyish grin.

"I know I've said this a million times now, but this is so adorable," Eleanor cooed, motioning between me and Casey as we started getting lost in each other's eyes, which was totally not cool to do at the dinner table with two other people present. I blinked away, blushing. "I've always known there was something between you two."

"No, you didn't," Micah interjected with a laugh. "You were completely oblivious."

"I was not," she protested.

"You said Casey was too young to know how to flirt," he reminded her. "I caught it right away, but you were in denial for a really long time."

"He was too young to flirt, that was why it never worked out when they were in high school."

"Ouch, Ellie," he said with a laugh and a wince. "True, but hurtful."

"All that matters is you finally found each other and I could not be happier for both of you," she said with a smile before giving up on the stuffed shells. She stood from the table and announced, "I'm making her a peanut butter and jelly."

Auden looked smug as Micah dropped the fork he'd been attempting to coax Auden into eating off of. The two year old had defeated her exhausted parents yet again.

"Don't we have to meet Natalie soon?" Casey asked soon after Eleanor returned with the sandwich that Auden eagerly scarfed down while leaving her pasta shells abandoned on the plate beside her.

"Yeah, we should probably head out."

"Still trying to get her to like Casey?" Eleanor asked teasingly.

"She's stubborn, but I know she'll come around," I tried to assure everybody in the room, including myself. "We're going to this glow in the dark mini golf place, it's going to be so much fun."

Casey didn't look convinced about either of my statements, but reluctantly started standing from the table to say his goodbyes to his sister, Micah, and Auden. I wouldn't force Natalie and Casey together forever if she remained stubborn on not liking Casey, but I wanted to at least try a little bit for them to get along. I didn't want Natalie to think that I was making a mistake in trusting Casey again. They were the two most important people in my life and I really wanted them to become friends.

I was trying to hide how nervous I was for the night, wanting to come off as confident as possible so that Casey would go into it confident as well. However, as I parked the car in the parking lot in front of the mini golf place, he squeezed my thigh in his large palm and said, "You can relax, Josie. This will be fun."

"Yeah," I smiled at him before we shared a quick kiss and then got out of the car. All of my anxiety about hanging out with Natalie and Casey together went completely out the window when we walked through the front door and found my best friend standing at the front with a tall man standing beside her. They were laughing, but she was twirling her hair through her fingers like she did when she was nervous.

"Hey," I caught her attention, trying not to stare at the stranger she was talking to.

"Josie! There you are," she beamed at me before motioning toward the man. "This is Michael, I hope it's okay I brought him? It was kind of last minute."

I was freaking out now for completely different reasons than before. I wasn't worried about Natalie liking Casey, I was wondering who the hell Michael was, why she invited him to come out with us, and why he was making her so nervous. I had a thousand questions bursting at every seam.

"I'm Casey," he introduced himself as I gaped like a fish. With one hand on my lower back, he used the other to shake the man's hand. "And it's good to see you again, Natalie. I'm glad we're doing this, I haven't been mini golfing in a long time."

Her eyes narrowed at him in a hardly perceptible way. "Letting me win won't get you on my good side, just so we're clear. Anyway, I already got our supplies, so let's get started."

She flashed me a 'keep it together' look as she handed out the putters and golf balls from her fists. "Act normal," she hissed at me under her breath as she dropped a neon pink ball in my palm.

I wanted to ask her if we were on a double date right now, but there was no good way to ask that in front of the boys. Instead, I dropped my ball onto the first course and took the first turn. "Casey isn't going to let anybody win, he's just going to lose naturally."

He laughed in my ear, calm and slow. "I think you're better at shit talk than you are at actually winning, so we'll see about that."

I gaped at the comeback as he took his turn after me.

"The funniest thing happened," Natalie started to answer one of my many unasked questions about what was going on. "Michael works at the office with me, but in a different department on a different floor. We run into each other a lot in the break room. I was talking to him about this mini golf place this afternoon and he mentioned that he had been wanting to go. So I figured he could come with us. I did warn him about Josie's terrifying competitive streak, and he hasn't seemed too intimidated."

"Maybe I'm more intimidated than I seem," Michael said with a chuckle. "But I'm up for the challenge."

Natalie was flashing some very obvious heart eyes at him as he took his turn on the first course. The same kind of eyes I was giving Casey at dinner. Was this really happening? My perfect, shy, self conscious best friend was on a date?

"What department do you work in, Michael?"

"I'm a software engineer. Right now working on some DevOps back-end processes but I'm trying to move into cyber security," he explained easily. Natalie hung on every word in a way I'd never seen her before. Had she been crushing on this guy for a long time without me knowing? I suddenly felt like the shittiest friend for getting so caught up in my own issues that she didn't have the time to tell me about Michael.

Casey brought up something about the way his lab uses software engineers to develop programs to project the data his team collected. It all sounded very technical in ways I would never understand, but it started a very in depth conversation between the two men. I wondered if he did this on purpose, to distract Michael enough for me to have a whisper conversation with Natalie.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked immediately once I was sure the two men were too distracted to hear what I was saying.

She just shrugged. "You don't mind, do you? I told him that I was kind of dreading having to be nice to Casey and being a third wheel, so he offered to come with me."

"You were dreading it?"

"Maybe that was dramatic," she conceded. "But I've been wanting to hang out with him for a long time and I know I should have told you, but I didn't think I'd ever have the tits to actually ask him out."

"So you are 'out'?" I asked her, only pausing the conversation to hit my ball again, getting the ball in the hole with two swings.

Another clueless shrug. "I have no idea, I'm too nervous to ask. Please stop grinning like that, it's going to creep him out."

"I'm smiling normal," I defended myself.

"You're smiling like the Cheshire Cat."

"Josie, did you tell Natalie what happened with Boris?" Casey asked at the second hole, maybe to distract me from my best friend being on a date when she'd suffered with her own body image for our entire friendship. Enough that she shied away from any man that ever showed her interest.

"She was FaceTiming me as it happened," Natalie answered for me. "Boris was an asshole anyway, he had it coming. I don't know how you're going to handle the whole crime section on your own though, you were working terrible hours as it was."

"From the looks of the Kripke crime section, it seems like Josie has been doing most of the work anyway," Casey interjected with a small shrug. "Boris's articles were always minuscule and dry, and she's cited as a source in almost everything he wrote."

"He's been referencing my research for months now," I confirmed with a nod. "I'm going to push Kim to hire another writer as soon as possible anyway. The whole section on my own would be a lot of responsibility."

"You'll need to get used to responsibility if you're going to become CEO in the next five years," he reminded me with a joking laugh.

"You read the entire Kripke crime section?" Natalie asked Casey with a look of skepticism on her face.

"Oh yeah, I have for years now. Ever since Josie started working there," he answered with ease. "I have an alert set up on my phone whenever a new article is posted."

I almost expected a sarcastic gagging sound from Natalie but instead, she let out a defeated sigh as she took her next turn. "That's really sweet," she said, mostly under her breath but still there.

Casey heard it and flashed me a reassuring smile. Of course he was winning her over. How could he not? He was nearly perfect, both inside and out, there wasn't very much she could hate other than his past mistakes.

On the sixth hole, I got a hole in one. Of course, I was obnoxious about this and gloated constantly as the other three people took their turns, getting it in with two or three hits. I did a little dance, I lightly insulted their intelligence.

Until Casey got an evil smirk on his face and said, "You know, I never got to thank you, Natalie, for your wonderful videography."

I gasped out loud when I realized that he had the nerve to bring up the humiliating video that Natalie accidentally recorded about me talking about my self-indulging fantasies that were definitely centered around Casey back when he was still engaged to Rebecca.

"What videography?" she asked with a confused frown.

His smirk turned into a full grin as his eyes flicked back to me. "You didn't tell her?"

"How dare you."

"Tell me what?"

"Nothing," I said quickly, at the same time as Casey said, "You recorded, accidentally I think, a conversation you were having with Josie. There was a photoshoot involved, that pink thing."

"A pink thing..." she trailed off in thought until she realized what he was talking about. Her eyes went wide, and then even wider as she remembered what kind of conversations we were having that night. "Oh no. Why wouldn't you delete that immediately?"

I could only shrug as my face went beet red. Despite having had sex with Casey multiple times now, it was still somehow embarrassing to admit out loud that I was so desperately attracted to his body. "I didn't know it existed until he found it. I tried wrestling it from him, but if you haven't noticed, he's built like a fucking truck."

"What am I missing?" Michael attempted to catch up in the conversation.

"Nothing," I said quickly, flashing both Casey and Natalie warning looks to keep their mouths shut. They shared a look and then burst out laughing and of course I was mortified, but I was thrilled that they were bonding. Even if it was over my own misery, it still counted. So I let them laugh for a minute before asking, "Who's turn is it?"

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Two more chapters left! Sorry this one is a couple of days late, I was out of town <3