Eyesore

It figures, Minnie thought, that the day she chose to wear zero make up to school and leave her face, that had broken out due to picking at it constantly, exposed was also the day that Joe finally texted her and told her to be waiting outside the back parking lot of her school because he was planning to pick her up at the end of the day. Her thick brown bags covered the worst of the little pink scabs, but some were sitting noticeable on her cheeks.

With a book against her chest, she had her arms crossed over it like she was hugging herself and waited bored, huge black sunglasses covering her pale and dry skin while she waited. She wasn’t sure what his actual car looked like, so she assumed that a black SUV with tinted windows being driven by a huge intimidating bodyguard would pull up.

From: Joe
I’m right in front of you!

Her phone had buzzed inside her pocket with a text message. Minnie felt like an idiot when she looked up and realized that underneath a lame disguise of a bright colored trucker heart and white Wayfer style sunglasses was Joe, in just a normal run-of-the-mill white car. The car had been idling in front of her for, at least, a full minute. So she picked up her backpack off the ground, threw it over a single weak shoulder, and walked around into the passenger seat.

"Where are all of your friends?" Joe asked, still looking out the window and wondering why she was standing there and waiting all by her lonesome.

"I don’t really have a lot of friends." Making herself comfortable in the chair, Minnie over-exaggerated, while strapping herself in and checking out the back seat of the car. She was surprised to notice it was clean, she expected lacy bras to be scattered along with pictures and molding food wrappers. Instead, there was just a guitar case and two CD cases, both bands she’d never heard of before.

"Must be your sunny disposition that keeps them away." Joe teased, blandly, while looking her over behind his shades. He wasn’t sure why he was acting so stand offish towards her, but he did know that he was completely against all the new feelings that rushed through his body when he thought about her.

"Yeah, it’s a mystery you can even stand my perkiness." Matching his banter dryly, she said while they left the parking lot and school behind them. "So, why’d you insist on picking me up today?" Patting her hands down on her knees, she asked, listening to her stomach growl and hoping he didn’t hear how loud it was.

"I didn’t insist," Joe corrected her, quickly. "I just said I would."

"Alright, why?" She spoke over the loud clang of drums that the song they were listening to had, smashing and flailing like they were really pissed off. Minnie waited for his answer, hoping that he would transform back into the guy who stood up to her dad and said that she was a somebody.

"Because I want to see a movie."

"We just saw a movie last weekend."

"I haven’t seen a movie outside of a hotel or at a premiere in, exactly, two years. I just wanted to go do something normal and I thought you would, too." The few times he’d really hung out with Minnie, he got the feeling that she constantly felt uncomfortable with herself and in her surroundings, he had a knack for sensing other people’s vibes, so he figured that she would appreciate a day of normality. Plus, he wanted an excuse to see her again after "The Cheetah Girls" movie premiere.

"Thanks, I do, but you know, most normal people take off their sunglasses in a dark movie theater, will you?" She openly poking fun at his weak disguise that she’d seen different versions of before. It was the first time he’d worn a trucker style cap, but it was always a pair of sunglasses and some kind of hat over his long locks of dark hair. When she first met him, she thought he looked too girlie and that was probably why girls liked him, they felt they could relate to him, but over time, she found herself wanting to run her fingers through his hair.

"When the house lights go down, yeah." He said, driving towards the closest mall that he knew of off the top of his head.

Only a street away, and finally engaged in light conversation with Minnie, that consisted of laughing over the whole concept of "The Cheetah Girls", Joe’s cell phone began to sing loudly, an obnoxious rap ring tone, in the front cup holder of his car. He reached down to pick it up, knowing from the song alone, that it would be a text message.

"That’s dangerous, you know." Annoyingly, Minnie pointed out, noticing only one of Joe’s hands was left on the steering wheel while both his eyes stared at the screen of his cell phone over his knee.

Fr: Gaston Savard
In an hour, be at my office.
We have to have a meeting, you and I.
An important one - Gaston

Joe groaned, not shielding Minnie from his displeasure, as he dropped his phone down on his lap and returning the other hand over the steering wheel.

"Hey, do you think we can rain check the movie?" He asked, after giving himself a second before contemplating just ignoring Gaston, but it wasn’t fair to his brother’s. Though, they enjoyed their time off after Joe had ripped a strip off of Gaston, they were itching to get back to work again.

Minnie instantly assumed it was one of Joe’s many girls, the models and other starlets, that texted him with a better offer or the promise of something that Minnie could never provide. She felt inadequate, plus, stupid for believing that she and Joe could even be friends.

"Yeah, for sure, just take me home." She turned her knees completely away from him and stared out the window, counting the blue cars like she’d done to distract herself from any harmful thoughts in Dr. Good’s office.

"We will go and see one soon, though." Joe said, careful not to promise, as he turned back onto the main road and in the direction of the Anaheim Hills area where he knew Minnie’s house was located.

He pulled up from in front of the driveway, staring at the radio while listening to Minnie unbuckle the seat belt and pick up her book and backpack off of the floor by her feet.

"Minnie - " He caught her right as her fingers had popped the lock and were just about to open the door wide to let herself out. She turned back, waiting to hear him say something either spectacular or just sound like a plain tool. Her eyes were big, actually full of life this time, as she waited.

"Well, thanks for picking me up from school." She took over the silence and reached around the handle of the door to push it open.

"Minnie, I think that I could like you." His eyes were staring at his jeans while his fingers traced a circle around his knee cap over and over. She couldn’t hear him, though, it was said in too low of a voice and rushed like a winning race car at the track in Daytona.

Joe wasn’t sure what came over him, but for the first time some kind of truth was coming out him, out of the place people referred to as a soul and as vulnerable as it made him feel, he felt like the way he was using Minnie, she deserved to know.

"I’m sorry, can you say that again?" Minnie leaned in closer, hoping she would hear him the next time. "My ears only hear things that are audible."

"I said," Joe groaned, looking up, but just rolling his eyes around like she was really getting on his last nerve. "I think that I could like you." He told her, not sounding romantic at all, but Minnie knew that it was difficult for him to come out and say, so she smiled brightly, unlike anything Joe had seen on her face before. He had no idea that she could be pretty like that, that any girl could look attractive without make-up or airbrushing.

"Maybe, I like you back." She shrugged her shoulders and slid out of the car, finally. Minnie had just as hard of a time as Joe did putting herself out there and being honest to herself and with others, but Joe just watched her make it inside her house safely, smiling from ear to ear like a fool.

X

The office he’d sat inside of numerous times prior was much chillier than before. Joe wasn’t used to shivering in California, especially not when the sun was still out, but there he was, sitting in the leather chair in front of Gaston Savard’s desk and shaking in his own skin.

"I think this has gone on long enough, don’t you?" One last click of his computer mouse and Gaston turned very slightly in his chair, facing Joe dead-on.

Joe kept thinking his brothers would walk in the door at any minute, but Gaston had assured him from the moment he entered his office that this meeting was between the two of them, it was all about negotiation.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about." Joe really wasn’t just playing stupid this time to piss his boss off, he honestly didn’t know just what he was trying to get at, but he could venture a guess.

"You and Minnie. Joe, I’m sure she’s a nice girl, but it’s really hurting your image. I just want what’s best for you."

"Isn’t it weird, to you, that you’re kinder to me than you our to your own flesh and blood?" Pushing a laugh out of his diaphragm, Joe put Gaston in the hot spot, but he barely sweat a drop.

"You’re my client, you’re like family, Joe."

He didn’t buy it, though, he rolled his eyes at the sound of Gaston’s line. Joe had told enough lies in the last few years to know when somebody was lying to him, and if there was one thing Joe hated more than most things, it was being played.

"Look, name what it’s going to take for you to dump Minnie, and I’ll do it." Finally, Gaston stopped dancing around and just got straight down to the point. One fist curling loosely together and banging against the table top, while his back slithered up straight against the leather of his custom made computer chair.

This was it, the exact moment that Joe had been planning to reach and scheming for, but it didn’t fill him with the sweet satisfaction that he’d been expecting. His mood didn’t change, he still felt cold and empty. Minnie was no longer an accessory or a weapon to use in his game, but at the same time, Joe wanted out of Gaston’s tight hold so badly, he knew his brother’s did, too.

Sighing, Joe made up his mind. He had been trying to get out from under the power of Gaston Savard for a longer period of time then he’d been thinking sincerely over Minnie.

"I’ll stop seeing Minnie, if you back off of your contract with the Jonas Brothers." He said selfishly, the words barely sticking to his throat, they flowed naturally through the air and met Gaston with a slap across his sun burnt skin.