Eyesore

If pain had a color it would be thistle.

Over her tiny bottle caps that were her breasts, Minnie had pulled on a tiny pale colored dress over her body after stripping herself of her sweats, that she’d ran three miles in that morning, in the dressing room. The fact that she had to guy a brand new gown for her sister’s birthday baffled her alone, but the fact that she had to stand in a three sixty degree mirror and look at herself at every angle was much worse.

"What’s with the long face, Minnie? You look flawless." Adrienne told her daughter, flattening her hand over her daughter’s back and fixing the dress slightly. As soon as the word ‘flawless’ left her mouth, she wished she had simply told her daughter that she looked good, but ‘good’ was never good enough to Minnie’s ears or brown panda eyes.

"It would be okay, I just hate my arms." She sighed looking at the flab of skin that folded between the spaghetti strap and her shoulder. Minnie could’ve listed more things about her body that she hated, but staring in the mirror, she was fixated on her untoned arms for the time being.

"There’s nothing wrong with your arms." Adrienne said without having to look. "I think it’s great. The empire waist is so flattering, sweetie."

As soon as she was made conscious of it, Minnie’s hand ran over her stomach and she wished she had pushed herself to do ten more crunches that morning.

"I don’t like it." She stepped off of the step she was looking at herself on and headed back into the change room. "Why can’t I just wear my sweats, again?"

"Because this is a semi-formal event." Exhausted of shopping with her oldest daughter, she dragged her feet over to the dressing room door that was locked and leaned her weight against it. "Minnie, I think this is the dress. It looked beautiful on you."

"I’m only saying we can get it because I want to stop shopping." One of her old favorite past times had quickly become a pet peeve to Minnie. She watched her naked body bend over, in the mirror, while she pulled on her pants. She hated the way it folded over as well as the few stretch marks that decorated her skin. There might’ve only been one or two, but they were way too many to her.

"Do you have other plans?" Her mom said with hope loud in her voice through the door. "Are you going to meet up with Liz before the party?"

"No, I want to go to the gym for a bit before Brier’s thing. You don’t mind driving me, do you?" Once she was dressed, Minnie pulled open the dressing room door with the thistle colored cocktail dress draped over one of her arms and her purse hanging carelessly off of her shoulder.

"I don’t mind, but Minnie, you went running for two hours this morning. Don’t you think you’re pushing yourself too hard?" Her mom asked while the two girls headed towards the front desk of the boutique, where they were both well-known clients.

"Mom, please, you know I want to lose weight." Rolling her eyes around in her pale and picked face, Minnie placed the dress on the counter in a ball.

"And I support that, Minnie, but I also don’t think you need to." She handed the saleswoman, who didn’t help them in the slightest, her ex-husband’s VISA card. It was one of the many things she loved about being divorced to Gaston Savard. "Anyway," Adrienne sensed how uncomfortable her daughter was about talking about weight in front of anyone and moved the conversation along. "How long are you going to be at the gym for, because your dad wants you to be at the hotel early to help Nicoline and her daughter."

Not that she would’ve tried to conceal it, but at the sound of her dad’s girlfriend’s and daughter’s name, Minnie groaned loudly. She grabbed the bag, that had her dress for the party folded inside, off of the counter, thanked the clerk, and dashed out of the store with her mom close behind.

Nicoline was straight "off the boat" as Minnie and Brier said, from The Netherlands, and you could hardly understand her words underneath her thick and husky accent. She was only 22 to Gaston’s 45, but they always gushed to the cameras around about how truly and deeply in love they are. Minnie remembered yelling in at the television when she heard her dad say on E!, "Being with Nicoline is being surrounded by perfection everyday."

Nicoline had blindingly bright blonde hair, which she always wore tied in a tight French braid, with cold gray eyes that were difficult to look into for a long period of time. As well as a body that was sculpted by the number one plastic surgeon in Orange County, the best money can buy.

Hera, was 16 like Minnie, but that’s all the two girls had in common that they knew of. The two girls never bothered to ever indulge in conversation with one another, dubbing each other "mortal enemies" due to being kind of step-sisters. Minnie’s dad always called Hera his own and gushed about how perky her ass was, even though Minnie let it be known how much it bugged her and how creepy she thought it was.

XXX

Behind him, Nick was sitting on the couch and tossing a ball over Frankie’s head into Kevin’s hands, but Joe hadn’t left the make-up chair where he was staring at his reflection and trying to remember just who he was.

According to fans, he was a sexy angel sent from Heaven to make their lives worth-living and if he went off the word of media and message boards, he was a stylish guy with a wild comedic side and from what his grandmother said, he was a boy with big dreams and tight pants on. However, Joe really couldn’t figure out his own relationship with himself. He felt like he was trapped inside of a stranger’s body, but he didn’t even know the name of the tiny voice talking at him inside his head.

That morning, they filmed a spot that was going to play between Bear In The Big Blue House and Disney’s Little Einsteins, even though it only took up a half and hour of their expensive time, Joe knew that was a half and hour of his time that he would never have as his own again. Usually, he didn’t keep track of time. He would just go with the flow and enjoy everything that came along, but these days he wanted his life to be more and he wanted his music to do more. When he went through his schedule now, filled in with the same old meet and greets and sing-songs, he was bored. He just wanted change, but his management team wasn’t ever going to put "change" in the marketing scheme.

"Joe, can you take over being the monkey in the middle?" Frankie whined walking back and forth and jumping up for the ball that kept flying way over his head.

"Sorry, Frankie," Joe pulled his eyes off of staring in the mirror and jumped right out of the black director’s chair. "You’re on your own." He headed right past his three brothers and out of the dressing room they were cooped up in and wandered into the hall that was bare except for the Jonas Brothers security team and the catering company for the event they were performing at.

Platinum records, millions of dollars, and hit movies under their belt, Gaston Savard had managed to squeeze the very last drop of dignity out of the three boys and dedicated them to play at his daughter’s birthday. It wasn’t enough that he tweaked all their songs until they were unrecognizable to their ears and would send them to be produced before clearing it up with Kevin, Nick, and Joe. Now, he was making them sing a set, for free, at his daughter Brier’s fourteenth birthday extravaganza.

Joe laughed at the thought. He could remember his fourteenth birthday where his mom baked a vanilla cake with fudge icing and sprinkles while all of his family and a few friends came over and played lawn games in the backyard.

At the end of the hallway, Joe spied Mr. Savard talking on his cell phone in an angry shaking voice. He was dressed to the nines with a cigarette lit in the smoke-free building, but Joe saw past the labels and addiction, at the end of the day, Mr. Savard was the man killing his love for music and he was sick of him.

However, Joe was smart enough to know that he wouldn’t have any credibility to his name if Gaston terminated him from Hollywood Records, that’s why he needed to figure out a way for Gaston to take himself off of the Jonas Brother’s team of hard workers...but how?

If there was one thing Joe had learnt from Gaston, it was that he was above and below, nothing was off limits and all was fair game. That’s why Joe knew his plan would have to hit Gaston Savard right where he lived.

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There was no way in Hell that Minnie was going to give Nicoline or Hera any credit, but she could acknowledge that it was their hands and eyes for beauty that transformed the usually boring and plain Hyatt ballroom into a fourteen year old’s dream birthday location.

Still, there was no one there that she wanted to have to co-exist with or allow see her in her shape. Minnie would’ve paid anyone an insane amount of money for a big sweat suit right then and there. She kept scratching at her skin through the dress, wishing she could scratch all the extra weight right off her bones.

Trying to avoid conversation with her dad’s business friends and people Brier went to school with, as well as keeping her eyes attached to the carpeted floor in order to not look at herself in the mirror, Minnie found herself walking through the doors to the kitchen of the Hyatt, taking in the nauseating smell of oils and a frenzy of spices, she broke through the back door and ran right against the railing to the cement steps in the very back of the hotel.

She watched as her breath melt into the humid summer air and tried not to cry out of hatred for herself.

On the very bottom step, Joe scrambled onto his feet fearing that he’d been followed by a crazy fourteen year old fan. When the upset-looking girl with a face covered in too much make-up and wild thick brown hair didn’t look over at him, he realized he might actually be safe sitting outside without Big Rob and sat back down on the steps.

"Holy shit, I didn’t know someone was out here." Instantly embarrassed, Minnie clenched her eyes together and mentally wished she could disappear. "I’m sorry." She apologized to the guy on the stairs and turned around to re-enter the building.

"You’re not bothering me." Joe shrugged his shoulder, keeping his back to her and staring off into the darkness that California was being consumed by.

"Oh man, you’re one of those brothers, aren’t you?" She recognized his voice to be the one that had spoke out to the crowd of cheering fourteen year olds with misty eyes and once she got a good luck at his neon colored velvet blazer, Minnie knew for sure he was the front man.

"Most people just call me Joe." He turned around, his chin nestling against one shoulder. Joe wished she would just leave him alone the way he was happy to be, but Minnie was really abashed now.

With no desire to let an international celebrity, one her dad worked with no less, to see her and zero interest in going back inside to Brier’s birthday party, she quickly took the three cement stairs in a pair of plain black heels and headed onto the cold pavement without any path in mind.

"That’s probably not safe." Joe spoke up once he realized the girl was headed out into the dark streets of Los Angeles in a tiny dress with no form of self protection that he knew of. From one quick glance of her, Joe didn’t think she’d be able to hold her own in a fist fight, let alone push a huge attacker off of her body.

"What do you care?" She turned her face at him and called from the street.

"I don’t." Simply, he told right back and shrugged from where he was sitting. "but, considering I’ll be the last person you talked to before they find you in a body bag, I’m an accessory, and I’m a little too busy these days to be interrogated by the police."

"If you’re so concerned about my safety, then why don’t you get off your ass and come protect me?" Minnie didn’t want any company, but she also couldn’t stand to look stupid in front of somebody.

"I can’t be your white knight tonight, sorry," Joe’s eyes found hers across the way and in a monotone voice, he told her otherwise. "I got to get ready for a second set for some brat’s birthday." Standing up from the step, he turned around, waving goodbye to Minnie with one hand and heading back inside.

"I don’t know what my dad will be more pissed about," She shouted at him, trying to make him feel like coward in order to make herself feel a little smarter in the moment. "You letting me risk being assaulted or calling my sister a brat." She giggled. Minnie knew, internally, that her dad couldn’t be bothered to leave his desk to make sure she was alright and she agreed with Joe, Brier was a little brat, but she couldn’t resist teasing the pop star.

Suddenly finding his own personal interest in Minnie, Joe spun around in his dancing shoes and walked down to the bottom cement step, staring at her as she took her first few strides down the sidewalk.

"Wait, you’re Gaston Savard’s daughter?" He asked with big eyes full of new intrigue.

"Yeah, but don’t go spreading that around." Minnie crossed one leg in front of the other as she turned around to look at the boy before trying to leave again. "It’s not my best feature." She said, knowing that Gaston being her father was probably the only good thing about.

Picking up his feet and rushing after her, Joe jumped in front of Minnie with his hand grabbing hers and forcing it into a professional handshake.

"I’m sorry about before I was suffering from a temporary stroke, I’m Joe Jonas, and it’s great to meet you." He smiled, finally finding his weapon of choice when it came to retaliating against Gaston Savard.

"Pleasure." She snarled, pulling her hand out of his and rubbing off Joe’s clammy touch onto the side of the dress she wished she could do justice inside.

"No, don’t worry, the pleasure is all mine." Nodding, he told her with a wink and a smirk. Minnie didn’t know Joe, except for what she watched on entertainment shows, but she could tell that the wheels inside his skull were turning right in front of her.