Free Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn Page A

her side and had begun walking backward, dragging her with him.
    A loud crash came from outside, followed by yelling. The crowd’s focus shifted, people turning midstride and heading for the French doors that led out to the backyard. There was more yelling, but over the music, Sadie couldn’t tell if it was happy yelling, like cheering, or the sound of a witch hunt starting up. Chad better not be involved in anything untoward. She’d abandoned his drunk ass on the patio near the keg and a game of beer pong, and Sadie didn’t think he’d do anything too stupid, like get into a fight or hit on the wrong girl. Chad was more likely to be the kid puking his guts up in the rose garden or caught dry humping pool toys at the end of a party.
    That’s what she hoped, anyway.
    Someone backed into her then, smashing her foot and sloshing her drink onto the floor.
    Goddamn it.
    â€œSorry,” a gruff voice said, and Sadie’s head snapped up, because it was Emerson talking to her. She said nothing, just stared at him, at his blond hair and handsome jaw. He didn’t say anything else or even seem to realize who she was. He just kept walking, dragging the drunk girl with him. They headed toward a staircase that had a string across it, along with a neatly handwritten sign with the message DO NOT FUCKING GO UPSTAIRS penned on it.
    As he read the words, Sadie saw determination set in Emerson’s eyes. Or was it hunger? She couldn’t tell.
    Then she watched as Emerson ducked beneath the string, carried the girl up the stairs.
    And vanished.
    *   *   *
    Sadie waited a few minutes before following. Patience was one of her few virtues, and she bided her time standing against the kitchen wall, staring at a predictably provincial rooster clock on the other side of the room, watching the minutes go by. She waited until even more high school students showed up, flooding the space with a rising tide of high fives and chest bumps. She waited until a bottle of cr è me de menthe was knocked to the floor and no one did anything about it, just tracked mint-flavored stickiness all over the damn place. She waited until no one remembered the drunk girl who’d tried to pull her dress up over her head or the guy who’d kept her from flashing her business to the entire party.
    Of course, Sadie understood Emerson hadn’t been acting out of kindness when he’d pulled the girl’s dress down. He was a guy, after all, and guys liked to believe in some bizarre fantasy world where girls didn’t think about or have sex—unless it was with them. As if the human achievement of populating the earth with seven billion people hadn’t let that cat out of the bag. Then again, Sadie was familiar with a few of Emerson Tate’s other fantasies. She highly doubted the willowy girl would go anywhere with him if she possessed the ability to see into his past.
    When the moment was right, Sadie walked to the stairwell and stepped over the string and the sign with an air of pure confidence. She wasn’t acting, either. It was confidence she actually felt. And it worked: no one stopped her or said a dissenting word.
    She padded up the steps on quiet feet.
    The home’s second story was opulent and dimly lit: a long corridor of wide-planked flooring ornamented with plush runners and flickering copper sconces. With one ear cocked back to the stairwell, Sadie sidestepped her way down the hall, peeking into every room. She expected to catch all sorts of couples going at it, horny girls shaking off their bras, horny boys trying to shove their hands into honey pots.
    But there was no one. Weird. Whoever’s house this was must be mean as hell or else a card-carrying NRA member, since everyone here seemed driven by the same self-absorbed ruttiness that ensured babies would be made in the backs of cars and off-limits bedrooms at high school parties for all eternity. Like the pull of the