Believe Me, I'm Lying

“Nicole’s flight lands at three tomorrow afternoon,” Alex informs Jack as he dips his paintbrush back into the can of paint.

Jack looks away from the wall he’s been painting for the past twenty minutes, the light blue paint wet and shiny. He focuses on Alex who’s now staring at him with a worried sort of expression, biting his bottom lip. “Does she um. Need to be picked up? Cause I can do that on my way back from work…”

“I actually think she’s got her boyfriend coming with her this time,” Alex mumbles, crouching down and running the brush along the white molding on the bottom of the wall, being careful not to stain the white with the blue. “She wants to go out to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Oh…Well okay. She’s being really…friendly, for someone who’s trying to take a kid away from his father,” Jack says, putting the paint roller down in the pan and standing up straight, hearing his back crack.

“She just wants to look good. Her lawyer will probably be with her too. And when they file for custody, the court will send someone over to check us out. It’s…to be honest, it’s scary,” Alex finishes lamely, biting his lip and dropping the paintbrush onto the plastic that’s covering the hardwood floors. He sits back, the heels of his hands pressing into his eyes.

He’s stressed out. They’ve only just moved into their new apartment today and already there are so many things that need to be done – like painting, moving furniture, setting up Devyn’s bed and their own and making sure there’s no dust and. Yeah. There’s so much shit to do and Alex isn’t sure if they can get it all done by the time Nicole files for custody.

Jack sighs, walking over to Alex and sitting down on the floor beside him. “Hey,” He whispers, pulling the younger boy into his arms. “Listen, everything’s gonna be okay. I promised you we’ll get through this and we will. There’s no way that anyone could look at me, you and Devyn and think that we’re not a good family.”

“Yeah. Until they see Nicole and her boyfriend, who both have great jobs at hospitals and are working towards their medical degrees. We-”

“Okay, since when does money and job status matter? I know that it’s gonna make them look good, but they don’t know Devyn. They haven’t been around him for the four and a half years he’s been alive. You have. You’ve been the one providing him with everything he needs, splitting your time between your job and school and him. The court is going to see that. They’re going to side in your favor. I know they will.”

“I…Just the thought of losing him kills me, Jack,” Alex mutters, his fingers lacing with Jack’s. “He’s…he’s my everything, you know? It was just me and him for so long. I don’t even know what I’d do if he got taken away from me. I wouldn’t be able to see him go to preschool, or make friends, or anything like that. I’d…I wouldn’t be the same person anymore. I’d be miserable. And miserable to be around.”

“Alex-”

“And what about him? He’d be scared. I know he would be. He doesn’t really like being thrown into new situations – who does? But he’d have to move to New York with someone he barely knows. And I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing he’d be afraid and-”

“Alex, stop.” Jack’s arms leave his body, instead pushing him up from the floor so that he’s standing upright. “If you think like that, you’re going to go crazy. As of right now, Devyn is in this apartment, across the hall, sleeping in our bed, exactly where we left him. He’s not going anywhere. I can promise you that.”

“You can’t, though,” Alex says, standing up also. “There’s no way you could. Anything could happen.”

“Fine. But I can promise you that no matter what happens, we’re not going to let him go without a fight. I swear, Alex, I’ll put all my savings towards the best possible lawyer if we have to.”

Alex nods, breathing in deep and then slowly letting the air out, calming himself down. He knows he’s getting worked up and that he needs to just step back and take things one at a time. He slips his hand into Jack’s and lets the older boy pull him into a hug. Jack’s arms wrap back around his waist and suddenly everything feels better. Not perfect, but better.

“Speaking of lawyers,” Jack adds quietly, his fingers pressing gently into Alex’s back. “We’re meeting with ours tomorrow. He’s provided by the state but. He’s as good as we’re going to get with our budget you know?”

“It’s fine. It’s totally okay. The main thing is that we show them that we’re more capable of taking care of Devyn. And to do that, we need to make this place look decent so come on. Let’s finish painting his room.”

“Okay. Only one more wall to go. Then we can do ours.”

Alex pulls away and walks back over to the can of paint and picks up his paint brush. “You sure that he can sleep in here later tonight?”

“Yeah. It’s water-based and we have the windows open. The guy said it’d be safe.”

“Alright.” Alex sighs and kneels back down on the floor. “Let’s get this done before he wakes up from his nap, then. He’s going to want to go outside and play, or something.”

“Okay. No more breaks.”

“Got it.”

Jack grins as he watches Alex painstakingly run the brush along the molding, his tongue sticking out past his lips only slightly, showing his concentration. He really just wants to go hold him in his arms and hold him tight and not let him go, but they really do actually have to get this done before the little monster wakes up from his nap and demands to go outside. Jack doesn’t mind though. Cause Devyn means a lot to him. And he has no problem acting like a second parent. If that’s what Alex wants, that is.

-&-

“Can we get a puppy?”

“Maybe.”

“And a kitty?”

“Perhaps.”

“What does that mean?”

Jack laughs, tilting his head back and looking up at the sky. He feels Devyn’s arms around his leg and he can’t help but smile because it’s just something he never really expected he would experience. He always saw parents with their kids at the park or somewhere similar, and the kid would run up to them and just grab onto their leg and wouldn’t let go. And now Jack’s actually experiencing it first hand and it’s just. Weird. But a good weird.

“It means,” Jack finally says, looking down and leaning his elbows on his knees, “that I will think about it.” He lifts his eyes and scans the small backyard, trying to pinpoint anything that looks even slightly dangerous. He’s already made sure the gate locks properly and disposed of the glass bottle he found in the corner but there could be something he’s missed. He can’t risk it.

“My daddy, h-he said puppies aren’t allowed.”

“Well, maybe we can hide the puppy in your closet. How would that sound?” Jack reaches down and gently lifts Devyn off the ground and pulls him into his lap. He knows that there’s no way that they can get any animal other than a something like a goldfish right now, considering the landlord prohibits most pets. But humoring Devyn is always fun. “Do you think your Dad would get mad?”

Devyn nods, “Yeah he would.” He shrugs his tiny shoulders and brings one hand up to push his hair out of his eyes. The sleeves of his jacket are a little too long and they cover his fingers, so Jack takes it upon himself to roll them up so that they’re shorter.

Glancing around the yard once again, Jack frowns. There’s really not much for Devyn to do other than run around in circles, really. And although that will definitely keep him entertained, it wouldn’t last for more than ten minutes. They definitely need to go down to the toy store and get a kickball or something. Maybe they could find one of those plastic playhouses. That would definitely keep him occupied for hours. He needs to go food shopping anyway, and the toy store is in the same shopping center, so he might as well take Devyn with him.

By the time he convinces Alex that he doesn’t really mind doing the grocery shopping and that it’s really no big deal if he takes Devyn along too, it’s a little after three in the afternoon. Alex is staying behind to finish moving furniture around in the living room, attempting to get it to look just right. Jack thought it looked fine the way it was but he really doesn’t know anything and is just deciding to keep quiet and let Alex do what he wants. It’s easier that way.

It’s a little different from the last time he took Devyn shopping with him. They took the bus, Devyn knowing pretty much exactly how the whole process went, and that kind of amazes Jack. The four year old is really aware of everything that goes on around him, it seems. Except when he’s in his own home. Then that’s an entirely different story. Jack could be calling his name for five minutes and he wouldn’t even notice.

“Why aren’t the noodles the skinny kind?”

Jack looks at Devyn who’s sitting in the cart, his tiny fingers clutching the box of pasta that Jack tossed in. “What?”

The four year old holds up the box, “I don’t like these.”

Sighing, Jack takes the box and puts it back on the shelf, instead opting to grab the box of spaghetti noodles. “Are these better?”

“Yes.”

With that taken care of, Jack finishes the rest of the shopping in a matter of thirty minutes, trying to stick to the list Alex wrote out for him. Since they’re trying to save money now, he really can’t get too many extra things, but he thought it would be okay to throw in Trix Yogurt and a pack of chocolate chip cookies just to have…and to bribe Devyn when he starts showing signs of a temper tantrum.

The toy store is located right next to the food store, which is convenient, because Jack is carrying like five bags of food and they’re kind of heavy and if he had to walk more than a couple of feet, then he’d say they’d come back tomorrow.

It doesn’t take more than ten minutes for Devyn to pick out one of those rubber kick balls that are usually found in school playgrounds and is definitely too big for him to even pick up. But Jack buys it for him anyway because he did say that he could pick out whatever he wanted.

The real problem shows up when they leave the toy store. It just so happens that right next to the toy store on the other side, there’s a pet store and there are puppies in the window, jumping around and barking and yapping and of course Devyn practically squeals and attaches himself to the glass, pointing excitedly at them.

“Can we go in?” He asks, looking up at Jack with his big eyes and a pout and seriously, Jack will probably never be able to say no to him.

“Okay fine. But only for a few minutes. And we’re not getting a puppy.”

-&-

Jack feels like it’s definitely not going to be the first time that he praises himself for finding an apartment on the first floor. If h had to drag five bags of groceries as well as a giant kickball up flights of stairs, he’d probably just give up leave everything at the bottom of the landing and make Alex come out and help. But he only has to walk up two small steps to get to their front door and the key fits in the lock easily, allowing him to unlock and push the door open quickly.

Devyn walks inside first, his hands clutching a plastic bag that reads Petland in big red letters. Alex, who’s been sitting on the living room couch, flicking through the TV channels, smiles at first - until he sees the bag his son is holding.

“…What’s in that bag, Devyn?” He asks, eyes narrowing. “Can you bring that over here?”

“Don’t get mad,” Jack says as he puts the bags he’s been carrying for what feels like hours now on the kitchen table. “We saw it and uh. Well, I thought it was cute and Devyn-”

Alex lips form a thin line when he opens up the bag. He reaches in and pulls out the plastic bag inside of it, holding it up in front of him. “You bought a fish.”

“Uh. Yeah. It’s just a goldfish-”

“We don’t have anything to put it in.”

Jack bites his lip. “Uh. Well I bought a glass bowl at the store. So we do. We can keep it in Devyn’s room-”

“Absolutely not,” Alex stands up, carrying the bag with the tiny goldfish in it over to the kitchen. “It’ll have to stay in the kitchen. Over by the window. I’m not letting him keep a fish in his bedroom. He’ll probably get up in the middle of the night and try to play with it if that happens.”

“So…we can keep it?” Jack asks hopefully as he rips open the box that the kickball Devyn picked out was packaged in. He drops it to the floor and Devyn is quick to run over to it, seemingly forgetting all about his fish.

“It’s not like I can force you to return it,” Alex sighs. “But seriously, you shouldn’t have gotten it. We barely have this place settled. The last thing we need to worry about is taking care of a fish.”

“It’s just a fish. All you need to do is feed it in the mornings and make sure it’s water is clean. No big deal, babe.”

As soon as the fish is settled in its glass tank and swimming around happily, Jack pulls Alex close to him and kisses the side of his head. “You worry about things too much. A little fish isn’t going to do anything to affect us.”

“Well…fine. But it’s your responsibility. Does it even have a name?”

“I was going to name it Alex. Cause it’s cute and adorable and -”

“If you’re trying to get in my pants, keep trying.”

-&-

Alex goes to bed around eleven, leaving Jack to stay up on his own and watch reruns of The Nanny and eat an entire sleeve of Oreos while he sits on the living room couch. He’s in the middle of contemplating whether or not he should eat another cookie when suddenly instead of hearing Fran Drescher’s irritating voice, he hears Devyn crying behind him.

He turns around on the couch and finds the almost-five-year-old standing in the hallway just outside of his bedroom door, hiccupping in between his cries and rubbing at his eyes. “Devyn,” Jack says loudly, getting up and making his way over to him, “Dev what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“I-I can’t find Daddy,” He gasps out, and Jack lifts him up, rubbing his back to calm him down because if he keeps crying like this, he’s going to make himself throw up and yeah Jack really doesn’t want to have to clean that up.

“Baby, he’s right in here,” Jack says softly, pushing open his bedroom door and taking a few steps inside. He knows that Devyn is used to Alex being asleep in the living room and probably didn’t even think to look in the other bedroom.

Alex is asleep, like Jack expected, and Devyn visibly calms down the second he sees him. Jack puts him down on the bed and he watches as he crawls up and tucks himself right into Alex’s side, his cheeks still red and his expression still rather distressed. Alex barely wakes up, his eyes opening only enough to see who just got into the bed and he wraps his arm around Devyn’s small body without a second thought.

Jack smiles slightly. He’s not really sure how he got so lucky but he knows he’s not going to risk losing what he has ever again.