Sunset Boulevard

Chapter 9

Books were being tossed into her bag, as Delilah cleared out her locker for the weekend. Little red earphones were plugged in, and she was lightly dancing, and bobbing her head to a wild-paced dance-electro song from a compilation album she'd bought a while ago.

She slammed the door shut, but Delilah's happy mood was put on a temporary hold as she rounded the corner and Coach Barker was waiting at the entrance of the school, his eye scanning the pupils who were leaving. She didn't want to speak to him, but acknowledged that, because he still hadn't talked to her about skipping that lesson that Calvin was rabbiting on about a couple of days before, she probably had to.

His steely brown eyes caught her appearance just before she came to a stop in front of him. Delilah exhaled, irritated. Coach Barker wasn't ugly, in fact, he was quite attractive with his muscular build and honey-blonde hair. It was just the fact that he was a bastard that ticked her off.

She pulled the plugs from her ears, draping the white wires over her left arm, an easy position for her to put them back in once she made a ready escape.

"Delilah," his tone was almost mad as he stood in front of her, stopping her from leaving the building.

"What?" she crossed her arms and started tapping her fingers against her bare upper-arms when he continued to be silent. She was getting extremely antsy under his gaze, and the fact there were now no other pupils around made it a little more daunting.

"You have an unauthorised absence for Tuesday. I don't like people thinking they can skip out on my lessons," his eyes were narrowed now. "Where were you?"

Delilah could get away with most things, but swearing at a teacher would likely get her suspended. So instead, she bit her tongue.

"Well actually, you'll find it is authorised. By my Dad." She was rather smug.

"I meant last Tuesday," his face was steadily warming in colour, and his light tan was darkening to a red.

Delilah couldn't recall what she'd done that day, so instead decided it best to fabricate the truth. "I was studying in the library. You know Mrs Wilson's rules, so if you wanna argue, go see her and ask why I skipped Gym to go study for a real lesson. You know her views already, I'm sure."

For a moment, she thought he was going to jump down her throat, but he simply glared.

"Just go," he growled, stalking off down the hall that led to the Gym.

Delilah glared after him.

"Dick," she muttered under her breath.

It took only 10 minutes to get home, what with the roads cleared. Fridays were always dead on an afternoon, but Friday night was the worst for traffic - everyone was partying, so it stood to reason that the nights were busy. And Delilah was usually one of those people. She momentarily envied those who were going to be getting drunk and crazy that night.

Delilah, though, was again ecstatic when she pulled up into the driveway to see the sleek silver jaguar that was owned by none other than her father. She didn't care why he was home early, she was just glad she got more time with him.

She literally jumped up the steps and flew through the door, wrenching off her heels and letting them drop on the rug in the living room as she passed. Delilah knew where her parent would be, and so bounded into the dining room where he, surely enough, was sitting at the head of the table.

The room, like every other in the house, was decorated to a crème scheme, with the walls being light, and the large oak table and chairs in the center being a mahogany colour. The drawers to the side matched them in a more lighter beige, and a few photographs of Delilah when she was younger were placed upon them in intricate black frames. There were lamp-like lights on either side of the room, attached to the wall, which were black stemmed, and rounded like a hook, so the light was underneath and shone out. The chandelier was of black metal, too, but the high cielings made it so that it didn't look too large, and had a lot of space for its individual lights to twinkle.