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It was the first thing he saw when he came into the building. The press roundup table had a couple of magazines with joint interviews, one with just himself, and about four assorted tabloids and trashy magazines with pictures of Lia. With that picture of Lia.
The agency had called him, they knew he was willing to pay off photographers to keep his sister’s disastrous behavior on the down-low, but he had refused. He was half regretting it now. He knows now why they asked for that much despite the fact she was fully dressed, there were no drugs on sight, and she wasn’t groping some other girl in it.
He reached for the magazine that promised a full photo spread inside and tried to find the page discreetly. His gut was churning uncomfortably, bile rising in his throat. He should’ve had some breakfast. It’s not as if Lia was going to show up early to record for once.
The rag was extremely trashy, peppered with puns about their songs, calling her outfit ‘sexy’ although it was jeans and a t-shirt. But the photo, that was graphic enough, and her facial expression in it—as though she was about to break her half blissed out smile into a moan, her eyes closed, her eyelashes so fucking long... her lips so fucking red and plump nobody would believe she often didn’t wear make-up. Noel knew that was all her, though, she had asked if he was up for going out that evening. He said no.
She looked like a porn star, or a supermodel. One of those oversexed photoshoots they made them do. And the three guys that were around her looked like fucking wolves. She was sitting on one guy’s lap, and he had his hand wrapped casually around her thigh, his fingers very likely reaching towards her crotch. A second guy was half crouched in front of her, looking up at her face while he groped her left breast. The third guy was sitting next to the first guy and he was whispering in her ear? Nibbling on it? his hand stroking around her neck. They were all laughing.
There was a second, blurry, tiny photo of all four climbing into a cab, the guy’s hands around Lia’s waist, holding onto her hip, holding the car door open. She was probably so fucking out of it that someone should have stopped it, but nobody did. She would have probably thrown a fit if someone had. The next page featured her wearing the same outfit throwing up into a trashcan near her home the next morning. Her hair mussed up. Still somehow painfully pretty.
The text was devoid of much content. According to patrons she approached the table with the guys herself, bought a few rounds and disappeared into the bathroom a few times. When she started getting sloppy the men started to pay for the rounds and just like that they left. She was laughing as they walked out. A bunch of paragraphs saying how disgraceful it all was. How she had no class and was a terrible example for youth today. A couple lines about how the band and Noel himself might want to rid themselves of the dead weight. Not a single hint of worry about her safety.
Noel kept staring at the picture. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. It seemed to be equal parts disgust and heartbreak. Down, deep, below ten layers of denial, that certain want he spent his days repressing. That possessiveness and desperation that he’d sworn he would get over as soon as they got older. As soon as he got a real girlfriend, as soon as he moved out, as soon as he got into the music business, as soon as they got a record deal... he was running out of deadlines to hide behind. Lia was getting more reckless. Needier. They never did more than kiss when they were younger, Noel always managed to keep himself in check, but he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t crack at any moment now.
It was as though she was taunting him. Not about all the people who could have her while he denied himself, but about how nobody would blame him. But that wasn’t the point. Let’s say he gave in and fucked his own sister and nobody blamed him for it. Then what? What good could come from it? Where the fuck would that get them? He was still looking at the picture when Lia’s voice came from behind him, bratty, smug almost.
“You’re not gonna lecture me, then? No ‘you’re not meant to be that kind of frontwoman’? No ‘what will mam say’?” He looks at her and her eyes are blood-shot and fiery. She probably was out all night again, she probably saw the pictures herself and fucking loved the idea of Noel having a meltdown over them. She probably figured he’d bring up how she is meant to behave like a bit of a tomboyish girl next door, not the council estate slag like people want her to be. How she’s cheapening the band’s music, ruining their legacy. How it’s rock’n’roll for guys and ugly girls to do this but not for little princesses that look like movie stars. How their mam would never stand for such behavior.
Noel swallows the bitterness in his throat, and he can read her so well. He can see the defiance, her silent request of ‘tell me to stop and I will’, ‘give me what I want, I know you want it too’, ‘love me’. He snorts a fake laugh and shrugs.
Her face falls but she hides it expertly, and all Noel says is “What’s the point? I just hope you’re making them wear condoms,” before turning on his heel and heading for the lift. She is still frozen in place, the magazine open on the table, not two feet away from her. Noel calls behind him, without looking at her, “we’re doing instrumentals today, go home.”
He doesn’t have to turn around to know she’s gone. He doesn’t have to wait ‘til Monday to know she won’t be able to sing. He doesn’t know if he cares.