the manuscript || Leonardo DiCaprio

Chapter 10: The Manuscript

Leo and I hung out nonstop all the way up to New Year's. It made my heart happy that he was going to spend the night with Ren and me at our house.

"Are you ready to finally make friendship bracelets together," I asked him with the biggest smile on my face. I already had the box clutched in between my hands.

"Yeah," he softly chuckled, since we had planned this activity for the evening. Ren sat with us on the floor as we gathered around the glass coffee table.

"So, what colors are you going to do for yours," I asked Leo as I already started picking mine. I was obsessed with the violet, silver, and gold for the current holiday.

"I think I'm going to do green, purple, silver, and gold," he decided after thinking for a moment. Ren handed him the piece of string that would fit around his wrist.

"We made appetizers for the evening. We just made deviled eggs, finger sandwiches, and taco dip," my sister laughed, since it was a different combination.

"It all sounds good," Leo softly chuckled.

"Oh! And we made green punch, which is my favorite," I happily piped up.

"Yeah, I wanted to make pink punch, but we had that at Christmas so it's okay," Ren shrugged, working diligently on her gold, red, and white bracelet.

"Are you going to add any charms to yours," I asked Leo as I found a small, silver bird I liked.

"I hadn't thought about it. What do you like?" He scooted a bit closer as I scanned over the assortment, digging through the trays with my fingers a little bit.

"This heart is really cute, but you might want something else."

"No, that's alright," he cut in, me figuring he would be more interested in something like the basketball. I didn't question it though as we continued with doing our crafts. I was puzzled too when he cut his string shorter right before he tied it off. Just then Ren decided it was time for a snack break, us going over to the fridge to set the food out. We placed everything onto the kitchen counter, sitting at the barstools as we enjoyed all the variety.

"This taco dip is so good," Leo commented with his mouth full, causing me to hold back a laugh.

"Evie worked on that more than I did," Ren brought up, causing me to blush slightly.

"You want to play Monopoly after this," I shyly asked, since I wanted to take the spotlight off of me.

"Alright," Leo warmly smiled, him being the one who ended up with the most proprieties. Ren and I could barely stay afloat as we kept having to pay him from landing on his spots.

"I might as well give up now. I only have 5 dollars left," Ren stated, puffing her cheeks out as she held up the fake money.

"I'm not doing so well either," I frowned. I went ahead and took my turn, becoming silent when my piece ended up on one of Leo's proprieties. I remained silent, surprised when he didn't point it out, rolling the dice right away. "Wait, aren't you going to tell me to pay?"

"Oh, I didn't notice you landed on one of my proprieties," he claimed, but I could tell that he was lying. My heart fluttered at how he purposely was helping me out. He ended up being the winner anyway though, and we all had to stretch our legs from sitting for so long.

"You want to watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve," Ren questioned. "I think it's already on."

"Yeah, I need a break from playing that game," I giggled. "It got pretty intense."

Leo wrapped his arm around my shoulders on the sofa, and I leaned my head against his shoulder in contentment. When midnight finally arrived Ren was so excited just setting off streamers that she didn't mind Leo and I were kissing. I felt like I might stop breathing as our lips moved perfectly together, this kiss longer than any of our others.