Believe Me, I'm Lying

There’s never been a time that Alex has ever wished that he never had Devyn. Not once has he ever thought that maybe if Nicole had stuck around to help him out, his life would be easier. Devyn’s just been in his life since he was born and Alex has never thought about what life would be like if he wasn’t.

However, Josh seems to think otherwise. Alex picked him up from the airport only a half hour ago, using Rian’s car, and already the older boy is jumping to conclusions, thinking he knows everything that’s gone on in Alex’s life in the past few years that he’s been gone.

“You need to find out where that girl is and get her to start helping out, Alex! It’s not right for her to just leave you with a kid that’s half hers!” He’s standing in Alex’s kitchen, ignoring the cup of coffee that Alex made for him. He’s upset, that much is more than obvious. “I can’t believe you would just let someone do that to you!”

“Josh-”

“I can’t believe you’ve been living like this! Why didn’t you tell me! You could have called! I would have sent you money, or something!”

“Josh! Shut up! You’ve been here for ten minutes and already you’re acting like you’ve been in my life since you left!”

“I’m just pissed off that I wasn’t! If I had, then I would have been able to help you!”

Alex rolls his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was fight with his brother but it seems like that’s the only thing they’ll be doing tonight, and possibly for the rest of his stay. If he’s not going to see things from his perspective, then maybe they’re just not meant to try and restart their relationship. “I don’t need help, Josh,” he states for what feels like the millionth time. “I’m fine. Devyn and I are fine. I’m not going to contact Nicole because first of all, I have no idea where she is. And second, I don’t need her. I have Devyn, and Rian and Zack. And I also have Jack.”

“Okay, seriously, I understand that you think you’re fine. But Alex, look at where you’re living! You’re sleeping on a fucking couch! That’s not ‘fine’, that’s barely getting by! And who the fuck is Jack?”

Alex opens his mouth to answer but before he can, he hears the bedroom door shut and his eyes quickly give the living room a once-over, finding that Devyn’s no longer sitting on the couch watching TV. “Great, now look what you’ve done.”

“What? What did I do?”

“You scared Devyn!” Alex glares at his brother before walking quickly over to the bedroom door and opening it slowly.

From behind him, Josh starts to apologize, “Alex, I’m sorry-”

“Shh!” Alex interrupts him, turning around and waving him off, “Just shut up for two seconds, will you?”

Josh shrinks back and Alex takes that opportunity to walk into the bedroom, trying to be as calm as possible because he really doesn’t want to upset Devyn any more than he might be already. The little boy has never really been in a situation where any kind of yelling was involved. Not the way Alex and Josh were, at least, so he’s probably a little freaked out.

The first thing Alex sees is Devyn’s bed right in the middle of the room. It’s neatly made with his Finding Nemo bed sheets and it’s obvious that Devyn decided to bypass that as a hiding place. “Devyn, where are you?”

Alex’s next thought is to look under the bed, but then he realizes that there’s no way Devyn would fit under there because there’s a bunch of boxes filled with shit that Alex has long forgotten about under there. So the next option would be the closet, and the thought of that has Alex biting his lip and his chest tightening because he feels absolutely awful that Devyn is actually hiding from him.

“Alex, I really didn’t mean to-”

“Josh, be quiet.” Alex gets down on his knees and pulls the closet door open, revealing Devyn sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees up to his chest. He’s crying and he looks so small and terrified and Alex has never seen him like this before – he’s never had a reason to be like this. “Devyn, baby, come over here. Don’t be scared, it’s just me.”

It takes a few seconds but eventually Alex manages to convince Devyn that there’s nothing to be afraid of soon enough he’s got the little boy clinging to him and sobbing into his neck and Alex kind of wants to punch Josh in the nose for making his son cry like this. But then he realizes that it wasn’t just Josh doing the yelling and he shouldn’t be putting all the blame on his brother. Especially not when Josh had no idea Devyn existed when he walked through that door.

“I’m sorry,” Josh offers one more time as Alex walks past him to get into the hallway.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alex mumbles, rubbing his hand up and down Devyn’s back, “Let’s just stop talking about anything until Jack can come over and maybe take Devyn out of the apartment.”

“I still don’t know who Jack is.”

Alex sits down on the couch, keeping Devyn close to him as he starts to calm down a bit. “This guy that I’ve been seeing. His name’s Jack Barakat.”

“Wait…” Josh sits down on the other side, confusion painting his features. “You’re into guys?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I didn’t really like Nicole. We were using each other.”

“So…this Jack guy… Does he like, help you take care of Devyn or…?”

Alex sighs, resting his head against Devyn’s as the little boy’s cries fade into slight whimpers, “Kind of. We’re… We’ve been dating since the beginning of September… Devyn likes him and he likes Devyn.”

“Well… That’s good, then. At least you have someone to help you. Where does he live?”

“That’s a um… A story that I should probably save for when Devyn’s not around so you don’t scare him when you yell at me again.”

“What the hell? Is he like, a criminal or something?”

“No. Just… I’ll explain later. Let me call Jack and get him to come over here and then we can talk seriously alright?”

Josh doesn’t seem too convinced, but he nods anyway and Alex takes that as an okay to call Jack. He knows the older boy is free – he told Alex that if he needed him he could easily drop by because he was just going to be grading papers all morning. So hopefully he answers on the first try, Alex says in his head as he grabs his cell phone from the coffee table.

He keeps a tight hold on Devyn, who’s now just breathing heavily into his shoulder and gripping onto his t-shirt and showing no signs of letting go anytime soon, as he clicks send on Jack’s name, listening to it ring four times before the older boy answers.

“You have no idea how unbelievably stupid some of my students are,” is the first thing he says and Alex can tell that he’s getting frustrated. “It’s not that hard to research an artist and write a three page paper on it. I’m practically handing them an A for their midterm, but apparently it’s too hard of a concept for some to grasp.”

“Well maybe you could take a break from grading them? And come help me out?” Alex suggests, biting his lip, “I was wondering if you could take Devyn out of my apartment for a bit while I talk with my brother about everything…”

Alex hears the sound of papers shuffling and Jack coughs before agreeing, “Yeah I can do that. Ashley’s out with friends. I think they’re going to a club or something for a bachelorette party or whatever. So I’m free. I’ll drive over now.”

The mention of Jack’s fiancé makes Alex frown because it’s been two full weeks since that little moment they had in the hotel room. And obviously, Jack is still splitting his love between two people. Alex doesn’t say anything about that though and instead just thanks him. “Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it.”

“I’ll see you in a few. Love you.”

Alex presses the end button as quickly as possible, ignoring those two words that Jack tacked onto the end. He doesn’t want to think about that right now. Not when he has other things to dedicate his brain to.

“So I get to meet Jack?” Josh asks, “Is he taking Devyn?”

“Yeah. Um…” He looks down at Devyn, “Do you wanna maybe hold him? I think he’s calmed down a bit…” He wants his brother to get to know his son, even though maybe they got off to a rough start. But he’s pretty sure Devyn’s not afraid of Josh – just afraid of the yelling.

Josh hesitates, “I dunno… Is he gonna start crying if he leaves you?”

“Maybe. You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

“Well…Fine, then. Hand him over.”

Alex shifts so that he’s facing his brother on the couch. He runs his fingers through Devyn’s hair, saying, “Dev, Josh is gonna hold you for a few minutes, alright? And then you’re going to hang out with Jack for the rest of the day. Sound fun?”

Devyn lifts his head from Alex’s shoulder and looks a lot more interested in the conversation after Jack’s name was mentioned. “Jack’s coming?” He asks softly.

“Yeah. But you’re going to hang out with Uncle Josh for a little while until then. Okay?”

As Alex hands him over to Josh, the older boy grimaces, “Uncle? I don’t like that.”

“Whatever. He’ll probably just call you whatever he wants until he registers the fact that you’re going to be here for a few days. He’s not very good at names. He stutters sometimes too. But the doctors said he’ll grow out of that so…”

“You stuttered until you were twelve.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. Then Mom forced you to go to speech therapy and it went away. You cried every day you had to go but she still made you go.”

“I don’t remember that…”

“Well you probably blocked it out. I try not to remember most of our childhood, considering it sucked.”

“Well… At least now we’re better off than before.”

Josh looks like he wants to disagree, but then Devyn is sliding out of his lap and tugging on his hand, urging him to go color with him. He gives Alex a look that says they’ll talk more about it later before following the four year old towards his bedroom.

And even though Alex knows that Josh isn’t going to let the whole argument from before go, he’s still happy because at least his brother is showing he cares.

- - -

The grocery store is fairly empty today, which isn’t all that surprising. It’s two in the afternoon and most people do their food shopping early in the morning or later at night after work. So Jack doesn’t feel too bad about letting Devyn attempt to push the shopping cart down the empty aisles.

When he first walked into Alex’s apartment, he was quickly met with who was very obviously Alex’s brother. He was tall and had muscle – but not too much to make him look overly scary. His features matched Alex’s almost identically and he was holding Devyn, who looks exactly like Alex so Jack was a little freaked out, to be honest. But he kept cool and introduced himself and Josh seemed to accept him easily enough, which was comforting.

Taking Devyn off Alex’s hands was a little nerve-racking, just because he’s never been alone with the kid before and he wasn’t exactly sure what he could possibly do to keep the four year old entertained for a decent amount of time. But with one look in Alex’s refrigerator while searching for a drink before leaving gave Jack the idea to go food shopping.

“How do you feel about Oreo’s, Devyn?” Jack asks grabbing onto the shopping cart to keep it from moving.

Devyn looks up at him with wide eyes, “I had those once!”

“Okay. We’ll get a pack, then.” He tosses the package into the cart and then lifts Devyn so he’s resting on his hip. They’re approaching the aisle that has the eggs and he really doesn’t need the little boy shoving the cart into them and knocking them onto the floor. That might turn out to be disastrous.

After getting the essentials that Jack knows that Alex needs, he looks at Devyn and asks, “Do you like ice cream?”

He nods eagerly, “Strawberry.”

Jack scrunches up his nose. What kid likes strawberry ice cream? Seriously. “Okay. We’ll get some strawberry ice cream. What about fruit roll ups. Do you like those?”

Okay yeah, maybe he’s kind of sort of spoiling Devyn a little bit. But he knows that Alex never has the extra money to buy anything other than the necessities so he figures, why not? It’s not going to hurt anyone. And it’s obviously making Devyn happy so that’s a plus.

“Do you like cherry flavored or-”

“Jack?!”

Jack freezes with the box of fruit snacks in one hand and the other hand keeping Devyn supported on his hip. He’s fucked. This is the end for him. He’s so fucking screwed.

“Jack what are you doing here? And whose kid is that?”

Ashley is standing next to him, now, and Jack has to actually face her. He meets her eyes, hers filled with confusion and his filled with nothing but fear. Because honestly, this is going to turn into a screaming match. It’s inevitable.

“Uh…Hi,” he says lamely, waving the box of fruit snack in her face, “Um. I was just-” And then he sees her. All the way down at the other end of the aisle. And suddenly he might have a chance at getting out of here alive. “I was here to get something for dinner tonight,” he says smoothly, “And I ran into Victoria. You know, Marshall’s girlfriend.” He points to the opposite side at the girl searching the shelves that hold the many different brands of chocolate chip cookies.

Ashley turns on the spot, narrowing her eyes. “I know who Victoria is, Jack. But that still doesn’t explain whose kid this is.”

“It’s her nephew. She asked me to hold him while she went and got a few things.”

Jack is smiling now, pretty smug about the fact that he was able to once again worm his way out of a situation that would have been the end of him. Of course, it’s not over yet – Victoria has now noticed them looking at her and now she’s wondering over with a package of cookies and a grin on her face.

“Hey!” She says to Ashley, leaning in a giving her a quick hug, “Funny running into you here.”

“Jack said this is your nephew,” She deadpans, pointing at Devyn who has been completely oblivious to everything going on around him since Jack handed him a box of goldfish.

Victoria’s smile falters a bit as she looks over Ashley’s shoulder at Jack. He widens his eyes and nods only the slightest bit, giving her a look of desperation. She takes a deep breath and then lets it out before grinning again and reaching to take Devyn out of Jack’s arms. “Yeah, he is. Jack was holding him for me.”

“Oh.” Ashley’s suspicion slowly fades from her face and she crosses her arms, “Well, he’s adorable. I didn’t know your brother had any kids.”

“Yeah,” Victoria lets a breathy laugh escape her lips and she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, “Just him. I’m watching him for the weekend.”

Jack watches Devyn carefully, silently begging the little boy not to start crying and to act completely normal. He’s looking at Victoria with an interested look, still clutching the goldfish, but other than that he seems to be okay.

“Oh. Well that’s cool.” She seems to be sort of embarrassed that she attacked Jack with questions, her cheeks tinted a light pink. “Anyway, I just came in here to get some balloons. Tonight’s my friend’s bachelorette party and we’re meeting at another girl’s house before we go to the bar.”

And that gets the two girls off on the topic of weddings and parties and wedding gowns and shit that Jack really could not care less about. But he’ll suffer through anything right now, because his luck could not have been any better tonight.

“We have to start planning yours!” Victoria exclaims suddenly, “Your wedding is so soon!”

Ashley practically squeals with excitement, “I know! And there’s still so much to do! Jack and I have to have our final fittings and double check everything – it’s so much work. But actually, I really need to get going. I’m supposed to be at my friend’s house in ten minutes. But it was really nice running into you!”

The two girls hug again and then Ashley is all over Jack, planting a kiss on his lips and squeezing her arms tightly around his waist. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning. We need to visit the wedding hall.”

“Okay. Have fun, baby.” He kisses her forehead before she lets go of him. She waves as she walks away, smiling brightly and looking as pretty as ever. He knows that she gets hit on a lot anywhere she goes but for some reason, she still comes back to him and only him. He wishes she wouldn’t.

“So whose kid is this really and why do you have him?” Victoria says loudly, breaking him from his thoughts.

He quickly takes Devyn back into his arms and throws the fruit snacks box into his cart before turning back and giving the younger girl a one-armed hug. “You just saved my life. You seriously did. Thanks for going along with that.”

“Everyone has secrets, Jack,” She says, “I should know. I have plenty of my own. And I’m hurting people I love. I can’t judge you, but I just… I hope you know what you’re doing. Don’t get in over your head, please?”

“Thanks… I won’t. I know what I’m doing.”

“Ashley’s my friend. I… I don’t want to see her get hurt, Jack. But I feel like whatever you’re doing… It’s going to happen anyway. And this little boy really seems to like you.” She smiles lightly and rubs her hand over Devyn’s arm. “He doesn’t deserve to be hurt at such a young age.”

Her words dig themselves under Jack’s skin. It’s obvious that she has a slight idea as to what Jack’s secret is. But he’s not going to confirm or deny anything. He can’t risk that. She knows too much as it is, and even though he’s sure she won’t say anything, he doesn’t want to get her any more involved than she already is.

“Thanks for the advice. And thanks for helping me out. But I really gotta finish shopping… Tell Marshall I say hi.”

“I will… Bye, Jack.”

While he’s standing on the checkout line, Jack has a frown on his face and is looking down at the floor. He knows what he’s doing is selfish. He told Alex he would end things with Ashley. He just…can’t bring himself to do it. Ending things with Ashley means ending things with the entire company and there goes everything he’s worked for. It would all be gone. He’d be all but kicked out of his family and he’d actually have to face the real world without any kind of safety net. Yeah it’s selfish, but that’s what Jack is. He’s an asshole that does things that benefits him.

He does love Alex, though. He tells the younger boy any chance he gets but he knows he doesn’t believe him. And Jack doesn’t blame him. He’s waiting for Jack to call the wedding off and the longer Jack goes without doing so, the more reason he gives for Alex not to trust him completely. And that makes Jack want to kick himself in the ass. If it were possible, he’d do it.

“A-are you gonna sleep at my house tonight?” Devyn asks, his fingers still clutching that same box of goldfish. He looks up at Jack from his seat in the cart and Jack can’t help but smile.

“I don’t know, Dev. We’ll see.”

“You can sleep in my bed! I have Nemo blankets!”

“Nemo? That’s the best movie, little guy. Maybe we can watch it tonight.”

Devyn drops the goldfish and claps his hands together, clearly indicating his excitement. “Can you live with me and Daddy forever?”

“Well…” Jack bites his lip, hating the way Devyn is looking at him with those big brown eyes and adorable face and fuck. There’s no way he can possible say no. So he decides to go with an indirect answer that is also kind of a lie. “I’ll have to ask my mommy if I’m allowed. She makes the rules.”

Devyn buys it. “I hope she says yes.”