Believe Me, I'm Lying

“So, you’ve been the primary caregiver for Devyn since he was born. Is that right?”

Alex frowns. The social worked standing before him is intimidating – but not really enough to get him to be nervous. But the way she’s been referring to Devyn kind of makes Alex feel like she thinks he’s a pet, or something. But whatever. He won’t say anything about it.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“And you just recently moved into this apartment. With your…boyfriend. Jack. That’s also right?”

“Right. Two weeks ago-”

“And Jack. Is he someone that you trust with Devyn? You can leave Devyn alone with him and not worry?”

“Absolutely,” Alex responds. He’s getting tired of all of these questions. “Jack and I have been together for a few months now. Devyn loves him. I trust Jack.”

“Okay. One day this week I’m going to need to come by while Jack is around. He’s definitely unavailable today?”

Alex nods. “He had to visit his parents. He won’t be back until later tonight-”

“I’ll arrange another meeting with him, then,” the social worker interrupts, nodding to herself and writing a few words down at the bottom of her clipboard. She introduced herself as Anna but Alex is having difficulty calling her anything other than ‘the social worker’ in his head. She looks up at him then, clicking her pen. “And then I’m also going to need a day to sit down with Devyn and talk to him.”

“Talk to him? About what?”

“It’s routine. I can’t tell you what I’m going to ask but trust me when I say that it’s mandatory.”

All Alex really wants to do is show this woman to the door and close it behind her because she’s really starting to get on his nerves. He understands that she’s just doing her job but the way she’s speaking to him makes him feel sort of like she thinks this is a waste of her time. So he coughs, clearing his throat, before asking, “And you’re going to be asking Nicole and her boyfriend questions too, aren’t you?”

“Of course. Everyone in the situation gets questioned. I’m going to leave you this,” She rips a page off her clipboard and hands it over to Alex. “Read it through, call me if you have any questions. I’ll be able to help you out.”

“Okay…” Alex’s eyes scan the page as he follows the woman towards the front door.

She opens the door herself, turning only to tell him, “Have a nice day, Mr. Gaskarth.”

The second he sees her walking to her car, Alex sighs loudly, the paper crumpling in his hands. He wishes Jack were with him right now so they could talk about how they think the visitation went. But he’s with his parents, talking to them about what’s going to happen to all of his bank accounts. Alex really hopes they’re not too harsh on him. Jack looked nervous beyond words before he left earlier in the afternoon.

“Daddy? Who was that lady?”

Devyn is kneeling on the couch, looking over the back of it to see Alex. His eyes are wide and the TV is playing behind him, probably showing one of those Disney shows. He’s been really into Hannah Montana lately, for some reason. And, since he’s picked up the habit of ‘not being able to sleep because of nightmares’, he’s become particularly fond of the old TV shows that Disney plays at two in the morning.

“She was just a friend, Dev. Don’t worry. How about we get you in the bathtub and then we can take the bus to the pet store and get your fish more food?”

It takes a good amount of effort but Alex eventually manages to convince Devyn that going more than four days without a bath is not exactly something to be proud of. As usual, his clothes get soaked in the process and he has to change again but by the time five o’clock rolls around, he’s got Devyn dressed and ready to go and he’s just about to grab his keys off the counter, but then there’s a knock on the door.

At first Alex thinks that it’s Jack, and his mouth turns up into a smile as he walks over to open it up. But then on his way he remembers that no, Jack has a key and he would use that to get in and he wouldn’t just knock. So it’s someone who doesn’t have a key to the apartment and well. That includes quite a large amount of people. But whatever, as long as it’s not that social worker again, Alex has no problem opening the door. Oh, or Nicole. He doesn’t want to see her right now either.

It turns out to be Zack, who is actually the last person Alex expected to see. He hasn’t spoken to Zack or Rian since the day he got back with Jack and didn’t go to New York. He hasn’t spoken to his brother, either, but he figures he’ll call him up in a few days.

Zack though. He’s standing there in the doorway, shoulders hunched and an injured look on his face and at first Alex jumps to conclusions, thinking something must have happened between him and Rian and Rian did something to hurt Zack. But then he gets his head together – Rian would never lay a finger on the younger boy and Alex is ashamed to have even thought otherwise.

“Rian doesn’t know I’m here,” is the first thing Zack says, stepping inside the apartment and taking it upon himself to close the door behind him. “I just…I feel bad. About the whole ‘fight’ thing.”

Alex sighs as he watches Devyn throw himself at Zack, his tiny arms wrapping around the man’s legs. So much for going to the pet store. The goldfish will have to go another day without food. It’ll live, he supposes. “Well, you’re always welcome over here. I was never mad at you or Rian. It’s you guys that were pissed at me.”

“Yeah… We just really want what’s best for you, you know? And at the time, the decision you were making seemed really far from it so… Yeah we got pissed. But I’m over it now. Obviously Jack is good for you and he’s serious about you and Devyn so. Whatever makes you happy.”

Zack bends down and lifts Devyn into his arms and Alex smiles as the little boy just rests his head on his shoulder. He obviously missed him.

“And what about Rian? Is he still mad?”

“No,” Zack shakes his head. “Not so much. Like I said, he doesn’t know I’m over here right now but I don’t think he’ll care too much. He’s trying to figure out a way to come talk to you anyway.”

“Okay well… Do you wanna stick around for dinner? I can just order a pizza, or something.”

“Yeah, okay. Is Jack home?”

Alex walks towards the kitchen, over to the drawer that Jack has decided will hold all of their takeout menus. It only has four or five so far, but Jack is positive that more will be added. “He’s meeting with his parents. He left a little over an hour ago so hopefully he’ll be back soon.”

“Oh. How do you think that’s going to go over?” Zack sits down at the table, Devyn still all but glued to him. “How mad do you think they are at him?”

“Probably furious. I mean…Yeah. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

After finding the pizza place’s number and calling in their order, Alex finds himself sitting on his living room floor, laughing as he watches Zack and Devyn play video games together. He’s missed this – hanging out with his son and one of his best friends. It’s not that he forgot what it was like. He’s just had so many other things on his mind that it’s been hard to focus on actually doing fun things. But this is nice. This is a welcome change.

-&-

It’s not until later that night, when they’re lying in bed, that Jack talks about what happened with his meeting with his parents. They’ve got Devyn asleep between them (because again, he had a nightmare and didn’t want to sleep alone) so they really can’t talk very loud. But even with the soft tone that Jack’s using, Alex can still tell that what he’s saying is not exactly a good thing.

“They froze my accounts,” Jack says, his fingers gently tracing circles on Alex’s shoulder. “They didn’t take my name off but they made it so that nobody can add or take money from them right now. I don’t…I don’t really understand what they’re doing, to be honest.”

“Well what else did they say?”

“Well my Mom was probably the most upset of the two of them…She really wanted to see me marry Ashley, apparently.” Jack lets out a dry laugh and squeezes Alex’s arm. “Whatever. And my Dad was just kind of…I guess more disappointed than anything. Since now the deal with Ashley’s dad’s company is kind of ruined. They said they’re going to have to think about what’s going to happen to all that money.”

“We don’t need it. We’ll be fine without it.”

“I know that. You’re all I need, really. Took me long enough to actually realize that but, hey; I got it eventually.”