PERMANENT - Leonardo DiCaprio

Chapter 46 - Home

Monday 7.55am

I sat across from Leo in our airy private jet that was going to take us to LAX in a couple of minutes, whilst the crew and pilots completed any last safety checks to ensure our flight was a smooth one. Lisa and the rest of our travelling entourage all piled into the cabin too, schedules and a bundle of paperwork and folders in hand.

"Last stop guys," Lisa beamed (hangover free - smart woman) as she hurried past, stopping only to hand me an aspirin and a glass of water, and proceeding to do the same with Leo. We were both visibly worse for wear after last night's antics and hadn't actually had the energy to even exchange simple sentences to each other, only surviving on 3 hours of sleep.

I swallowed the painkillers and finished the rest of the water in the glass, putting it down on the side table next to me and glancing up silently at Leo, who was fiddling with something on his phone. His headband held back the mass of golden hair that threatened to fall in front of his eyes, which were heavy lidded from lack of sleep and overall exhaustion. There was a trace of dark circles under his eyes too (though not as noticable as mine, I can imagine).

As if knowing that I was staring (though I like to call it 'observing'), he looked up, his cloudy blue eyes falling to mine, and he smirked. We had managed to avoid the paparazzi this morning, though it seems near impossible that we'll be so lucky once we land in LAX, especially with the media catching wind of mine and Leo's new public relationship. Neither of us had had time to actually look at any tabloid articles as of yet, not that I particularly wanted to - I just wanted to get it out of the way.

My phone vibrated somewhere beneath me and the mass of fluffy blankets that surrounded me, and I dug around under my legs, fishing it out.

'1 new message: Matt'

It had been a couple of months since the last time me and my brother spoke, so I frowned and unlocked my phone and opened the message.

'Good to know that you keep me in the loop with what goes on in your life Penelope.'

Attatched to the message was a picture of me and Leo outside the taxi cab last night, kissing. The hostility of Matt's tone made me feel instantly uneasy, and my heart sank that little bit lower, and my mood was slowly dwindling.

"Hey," I heard Leo say to get my attention. I looked up from my phone screen to him, and he threw a packet of skittles my way, where I caught them with one hand. Again, he smirked, and that was the extent of our interaction for the morning.

I looked back to my phone and decided to type out a message while I still could, before take-off, but there was no way I could talk about this over text.

'I'll call you when I land.'

I wondered what he was doing, how his day had been. It was nearly 8am here, meaning it was around lunchtime in the UK. It saddened me to my core that I hadn't seen him since I left well over a year ago. We had always been close, me and Matt, practically inseparable, from when we were little kids running around with Teddy and the water hose in our garden, to being grown adults. Every boyfriend I had ever had, Matt had always made sure they were good enough (though according to him, they never were), and he always ended up being my shoulder to cry on. Since I announced my imminent departure to the US, however, he became somewhat distant, always busy, and since I actually moved, he had been practically unreachable (or so I heard).

'1 new message: Matt'

I hurriedly opened the message, my fingers skimming over the buttons.

'Don't bother.'