[ four ]

'i feel like i can tell you anything. :*' 

'me too. i wish you could be here with me, april. :)'

'one day you should visit me :D'

'i'd love to be with you in person so i could give you a hug and kiss your beautiful lips. april, i think i'm in love with you.'

'i know we met like a month ago, but i feel the same way. <3'

'eu te amo, minha linda princesa ^.^'

She stared at her phone screen, reading the message he had just sent her. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. To her, Lucas was one of the best guys she had ever met and it was easy for her to fall in love with him. Her television was set to the MTV channel and a show called Teen Mom was on. "Ugh." She scoffed at all the nonsense they were saying and doing, "I can't believe people actually like to watch this."

Her hand reached for the remote on the coffee table when the ending credits flashed on the screen, signalling that the show was already over.

April decided to wait and see what would come up next. "Coming up next, Catfish: The TV Show!" She heard the television announce. Finding the name of the show interesting, she waited for it to start. 

.

.

.

.

When the show ended, she was full of doubts over her relationship with Lucas. There were some things he would tell her that didn't add up at times. And the fact that she would send him photos all the time, while he didn't do the same was something she hadn't seen as suspicious until now. Would Lucas be capable of playing with her?

He would never lie to me, she thought to herself reassuringly.

She grabbed her cellphone that was on the couch next to her and unlocked it to send him a text. If he refused to video chat with her, then she would try to contact Nev and Max from the Catfish tv show.

'hey lucas, i was just wondering if you have anything to do today?'

'i just got out of practice, but i think i'm free the rest of the day. :) why?'

'do you think we might be able to video chat?(:'

She picked her phone up and clicked on the home button when a while passed without his response coming in. There were no new messages from him in her inbox. She even re-opened the conversation to check if her message had even been sent. April bit her lip nervously when she noticed the word read under the sent message. He had seen it, but decided not to reply.

'lucas?' She tried again.

'what?' 

'can i see you?'

'uh, april...i just remembered i'm hanging out with some friends tonight.'

'i just want to know that you're...you.'

'you don't trust me.'

'i do. but i just saw something on tv about people pretending to be someone they're not. and it made me want to confirm you're real.'

'april, you can trust me :/'

'just let me see you, lucas.'

'i have to go. my friends will arrive soon. can we talk about this later?'

'alright, bye.'

'i love you.'

'okay.'

And for the first time since they met, April was starting to have his suspicions about him. She opened up an internet page on her cellphone. In the search bar, she typed in Lucas dos Santos. Nothing came up.

At first hesitant, April finally decided to look up Nev Schulman from Catfish and composed a message to him on her facebook account, asking for his help.

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.

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His brown eyes scanned over the words on his phone screen nervously. April wanted to meet him, she wanted to see him. But as much as he wanted to meet her too, he knew she would hate him after finding out the truth about him.

She was beginning to suspect him.

He needed something to convince her that he wasn't lying, even though he was.

'ney, the guys and i are going to the club tonight, do you wanna go with us?' It was a text message from Jonathan.

'sure.' He replied.

If Jonathan was taking his brother along, which was likely, Neymar had a plan.

.

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.

.

The young Brazilian sighed into his glass of alcohol, his shoulders slumped down as he thought about the lovely young woman he was lying to. By now, he had told his friends about April, but he left out the part about him lying to her. Lionel tapped his friend on the shoulder when he noticed his upset friend. "Did something happen with April?" He asked, bringing his glass of alcohol to his lips to have a sip.

Neymar shot his friend a side glance. "Are you gonna go tell everyone?" He asked in a let-me-guess tone.

The Argentine scoffed at Neymar's sarcasm, "I only do that as a joke. I wouldn't do it in a situation where something was really wrong."

"She's mad at me." Neymar admitted, bringing the glass to his lips, he chugged it down. 

His face contorted slightly as the liquid travelled down his throat with a burning sensation. Lionel opened his mouth to ask another question when someone called to the group of footballers. It was Jonathan dos Santos who approached them with his older brother Giovani and a footballer Neymar recognized from a team called Villareal in the south east coast of Spain. 

"Hey guys." Jonathan greeted with a smile, "I hope you don't mind we invited Javier. He's a friend of ours from the seleccion."

From behind Jonathan, Javier waved at the group of Barcelona footballers with a friendly smile. Neymar saw as Giovani nudged his friend who stood next to him, blurting out, "Hey Aquino, aren't you a fan of Messi?"

Javier nudged him back. "Shut up, Gio."

The Barcelona footballers made room for the three new arrivals. Gio sat down next to Neymar, with Aquino sitting next to him and Jonathan sitting across, next to Gerard.

A few hours had passed and the group of footballers had a few drinks in them. Half of them were on the dance floor with beautiful women they had met while Neymar was sat at the table, waiting for someone to drive him back to his flat. He wanted nothing more than to be at his home, talking to the one person who knew him best.

At one point, he was sitting alone with Giovani and he tried to make conversation with the Mexican-Brazilian footballer.

"Hey Gio, can you do me a favor?" He asked nervously.

"Mhm." The young man sitting next to him replied with a nod. 

"My girlfriend April is a big fan of yours and I was wondering if you could...send her a greeting?" He wondered.

Gio smiled in response. "Sure. I'd love to say hi to a fan. Is she coming over here?"

"Uh..." Neymar laughed nervously. "No. She won't be coming here. She lives in the United States."

"Oh, well, we can send her a video." Gio suggested. Neymar pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to the tanned skinned footballer next to him. Gio switched it to the front face camera and pressed the record button. He said into the camera with a friendly smile, "Hello, April," The young footballer said in Portugese. "I hope you're doing well. Greetings and blessings from Barcelona."

Lionel walked up towards the two of them. "What's up?" He grinned. He plopped down clumsily across from them, a new glass of alcohol in his hand.

"We're saying hello to April." Gio informed his former team mate. At one point in his career, Giovani had played for Barcelona B in his youth career and later went on to play on the senior team, along side a young Messi for a year.

"Ah, cool!" Lionel grinned, coming into camera range. Waving at it cheerfully, he said, "Hi April, I'm a friend of your boyfriend's. We've all heard so much about you." He placed his hand on Gio's shoulder. "Really," The Argentine continued, "He never shuts up." Before he could say anything to ruin things with April, Neymar took the phone from the two of them.

After pressing the stop button to end the recording, he said, "I think that's enough."

"Aren't you going to appear in the video?" Lionel wiggled his eyebrows at Neymar. "Beg for forgiveness for whatever it is you did to make her mad."

"Uh no." Neymar bit his lip nervously. "I was hoping having her two favorite football players send her a greeting as a peace offering would work better."

Clicking away at his cellphone, he opened up a message and attached the video.

'i miss you, meu amor. and i love you. :*'

His finger lingered over the send button until he finally brought himself to continue with the lie.

-

a whole week without updating.

sorry.

but here it is and i really hope you enjoy it. as you can see, april is now beginning to suspect lucas. and neymar doesn't want to video chat with her because then he would get caught.

anyway, thank you all for reading this story.

and thank you for all the reads and votes. this story has gotten quite popular and it makes me happy ^.^

so thanks again.

i love you.

-clary xx