How Puzzling

"Have fun on your date tonight!" Emma excitedly said to Mandy.

"Eh, it's not a big deal," Mandy dismissed. "I'm not planning on going big like you did."

"I did NOT go big," Emma pouted. "It wasn't my fault that something happened on my date."

"I know, I know, I'm just messing with you," Mandy shook her head.

Emma smiled back and laughed a bit. "Well, regardless of if you've got some elaborate plan for tonight, you should still have fun, right?"

"That's the plan, I guess," Mandy relented. "No point in going out and doing something like this if neither him nor I have fun."

"What are you planning on doing, anyway?" Emma wondered.

"Why're you asking?" Mandy responded, somewhat suspicious.

"No reason, just curious," Emma honestly replied.

"Well, to be completely transparent with you, I don't really know," Mandy answered. "My plan was just to look around the hotel for something, since I bet there's something in there that both him and I would enjoy, but I don't really have any further ideas."

"Wow, since when am I more prepared for something than you?" Emma teased.

"Oh, don't you start on that," Mandy warned.

Mandy left the house at that point, not really wanting to have to deal with Emma any more. Spending time with the young gal really made her miss Liam...and how he had abandoned her. Maybe she could find a moment to talk with him a little bit on the walk over to the hotel? If not, maybe Turner could give his two cents on the situation with Liam; after all, they did spend the day together only two days ago.

Pivoting back to her own night with Turner, she was still in third place, which was a very comfortable place to be. Even if the remaining people for the week all managed to scrounge up enough points to pass her (which would need to be a big shift for Kathryn, and a lot of creativity for Becca), she would still be in the middle of the pack by the time of the next challenge. She didn't have to get carried away on the date with Turner, she could just enjoy the hours that they spent together. While it would be a little weird spending some leisure time with someone who was under half her age, Turner was pretty level-headed and mature for his age. Maybe working had jaded him a little bit, but it would be a nice change of pace from the dynamo she had to deal with in the current status quo.

She wasn't wearing anything super exciting, just a simple dress, one she wore to church on several occasions. It wasn't like he was going to be wearing anything that flashy either; according to a few people who went on dates previously this week, he was just wearing a polo shirt and decent shorts. She also wasn't planning on going anywhere special, either, or really out of the building, for that matter.

Lo and behold, when she met him in the lobby, he was wearing just what she expected, a red button-up shirt and somewhat nice shorts.

"Good evening, Mr. Andrews," she formally greeted.

"Likewise, Mrs. Teller," Turner responded.

"Alright, enough with the formalities, how have you been?" she dropped her faux-stoic demeanor that would be expected of a boss in favor of a more friendly demeanor that fit...well...a best friend's mom.

"Aside from the obvious?" Turner winced a little bit.

"Including the obvious," Mandy contradicted. "I'm not gonna have you sit here and try to tell me everything is going well when all this is happening."

"Well, to be frank, I don't even know where to begin," Turner said.

"Well then, let's sit down and see if we can figure it out," Mandy offered. She was no stranger to helping Turner figure out his problems. Hell, she felt like a parent to him sometimes with the amount of nights he would stay over with Liam.

"This is your date night though," Turner refused to let her take away her own night for this. "You should be using it to...do whatever you want to do, not try and solve my problems."

"Hon', solving your problems is what I want to do with my night," Mandy affirmed. "What else do you think I would want to do while I'm here? I'm not a spry youngin' like Abby or Charlotte. I'm not endearing like Emma. I don't have the history with you like Liam and Paige."

"Don't knock yourself down like that," Turner gently chided her. "After all, they did bring you here, so you're one of the ten girls...scratch that, nine girls who I was closest to. That doesn't mean anything to you?"

"I think they have their own reasons for bringing me here," she grimaced. "That's aside the point though. I do want to help you with your problems."

"But why?" he questioned.

"Because I know something's eating you away inside and I know that no one else is gonna bother to take the time to really talk with you about it," she sighed. "Emma and Charlotte were probably too preoccupied with whatever was going on at that very second, Abby probably felt weird about anything that happened, Lauren doesn't really know you well enough, Liam...he's got his own problems, Paige probably made you feel worse, Kathryn isn't really gonna be a great person to dump all your problems on given her new tendencies, and Becca and Sara are probably gonna be caught up too much in their intricate plans for their nights."

"That's...you've really looked deep into everyone, haven't you?" he avoided her request.

"You might say that," she dismissed. "Anyways, spill the beans, you can't just be doing fine with all that's been going on around you."

"I guess, you're right, I haven't been doing fine," he abdicated. "I know that Kendra decided that I should get this huge reward or something in the form of you girls, but that hasn't been without its downfalls, especially since it's something really recent, y'know? I'm worried about y'all down there, because of how cunning she's shown herself to be."

"Yeah, I get that," Mandy sympathized. "I know I probably got the least altering transformation out there, and even though I know it's not really doing anything right now, that doesn't mean that Kendra isn't gonna find a way to morph it into something distasteful in the near future."

"Well, hasn't done much right now would be a more truthful way to phrase that, but I don't really think I should tell him about how Becca came up to me for advice," Mandy thought to herself after she said that.

"I can't even imagine what she'll think up for the people who were in the back of the pack too," Turner continued. "Emma, Abby, Kathryn, they're all gonna get pretty horrible transformations of their own too. I guess, any transformation can be construed in a terrible light, so the only one that's safe is...Paige."

The way he said Paige's name gave a lot of information to Mandy. Sure, it could've just been because Paige was his ex, but what was the point gain from, then? Something had to have happened last night for her to skyrocket ahead of Abby again after last night, and if Turner's voice was any indicator of it, it sounded like he wasn't exactly a happy camper about what had happened.

"What about Paige?" she redirected. "I mean, you just were on a 'date' with her, right? That can't have been easy."

"I don't really wanna get into that," Turner recoiled. "Ignorance is bliss, right?"

"Y'know, it's funny you say that, because Becca said the exact same thing to me this morning," Mandy smirked a bit. "You two really were made for each other."

"Wait, wait, what?" he stepped back a bit. "Why on Earth would she say that? What's going on down there with her? Is she okay?"

"Well, I mentioned how she could look at the scoreboard to confirm or deny whether or not Paige had done anything," Mandy grimaced. "Which, I realize now, was a stupid thing to say, given that Paige doubled her score, but I didn't know that at the time. Anyways, she's doing this thing where she doesn't look at the scoreboard because it caused a meltdown the last time she did, so she's kinda in the same boat as you when it comes to this."

"That's just gonna make it ten times worse if Kendra announces it at the start of the round or if she sees the one in here in two days," Turner took a deep, anxious sigh, thinking about what would happen during then, but pushed it to the back of his mind for now. "I guess, if she wants to do that, it's her prerogative. Not really what I would do, or heck, even expect her to do, but again, not my choice to make."

"Anyways, enough about Becca, back to my question, anything happen with Paige?" Mandy repeated.

"I mean, you already know that something happened, since you mentioned her doubling her score," Turner once again avoided her questioning.

"Yeah, I do know that something had to have happened, but that doesn't mean I know what nine points equates to, especially since it can differ person to person," Mandy rolled her eyes like she was stating the obvious.

"That's probably something you're gonna have to talk to her about, since I wasn't really myself, I guess you could say, when it happened," Turner rubbed the nape of his neck uncomfortably.

"Wait, what?" Mandy did a double take.

"Yeah, she asked me if all these different things happened, and I was really confused, because I didn't remember a single one of them," Turner explained. "The only logical reason could've been that I wasn't really myself, or I was ****."

"Wow...that's...she told me something happened, but she didn't mention that," Mandy's eyes narrowed a bit. While Paige was someone she was rather close to on this show, mainly out of necessity, she was starting to question her relationship with the girl.

"Wait, she told you?" Turner got caught up on that bit. "Are you...like befriending her or something? Or did she just mention it in passing?"

"I wouldn't necessarily call it 'befriending'," Mandy half-lied. "More like we have a mutual understanding, since we're in the back of the pack with points."

"I see," Turner massaged his temple. "Well, that's good, because I wouldn't put it past her to take advantage of any sort of bond the two of you create. I know I'm supposed to be objective and all, but I felt I should at least warn you about that sort of thing."

"I get it, I know her type all too well," Mandy waved her hand. "I subbed at a high school for a while in college to make ends meet."

"Anyways, you still haven't given me any clue to what your plan is today," Turner reminded. "Unless your entire plan was to try to get me to talk."

"Why don't we go on a little stroll of the hotel?" Mandy offered. "Might as well get to know where you're living, right? If we come across that strikes our fancy, we can go there too."

"That's...actually a good point," Turner nodded in approval. "I really haven't gotten to see much of what this place offers, I've mainly just stayed in one wing of the lobby floor and up in my room."

"Shall we?" Mandy gestured towards the west hallway.

"We shall," Turner mirrored.

They walked down the hallway, marveling at the embellishments on every wall. It was just the perfect amount of decoration that Kendra, or whoever was responsible here, put in the hotel. Any more and Turner would've accused it of being gaudy, but it was just perfect enough to be decorative. There were tall, marble pillars that stretched up to the ceiling which looked to be at least thirty feet off of the ground. The hallway had all of these little crinkle markings that made it almost seem like they were coated in gold foil.

"How do you live here?" Mandy wondered aloud. "It'd be like living in a museum."

"The penthouse isn't this...elaborate," Turner explained. "It just feels like a ritzy hotel room in Vegas up there, not like I'm the king of France or something."

"Ooh, what's in here?" Mandy asked as she opened up a door on the left that Turner had never been in.

"Knowing Kendra, it's probably something stupid like a room filled with sex toys or something-"

"No way! 3000 pieces?" Turner heard from the room.

"Never mind."

He walked in there and saw Mandy sitting at a table in the middle of the room. The golden walls of the room were lined with shelves that were absolutely packed to the brim with cardboard boxes, each containing a puzzle in them.

"I always wanted to do a big puzzle like this, I just never found the time to do it," Mandy said, clutching a massive box that revealed the number "3000" on the front.

"You think we can do a 3000-piece puzzle right now?" Turner inferred.

"Why not?" Mandy rhetorically asked. "I'm great at puzzles, and I doubt you're very bad at them yourself. Remember when you and Liam went on vacation, there were the four of us that did that 1000-piece puzzle in less than an hour?"

Turner remembered when they had gotten a beach house for vacation one year. It was him, Phoebe, his parents, Sara, Liam, and Mandy. He and Phoebe had both been allowed to bring one person along with them, and Mandy wanted to go as well.

"I've definitely seen that clinginess that she has to Liam even to this day," Turner thought, but didn't say out loud.

"Yeah, but there were four of us there, and that was a third of the size of this," he said, deadpan. "That's gonna take like six hours if it was just the two of us to do that."

"Fine, do you wanna do one of these smaller ones then?" she put down the box and picked up one nearby that was only 750 pieces, with a picture of the hotel as the final picture.

"Charming, I wonder what other pictures they have for puzzles," he was distracted by the cover of the box. "But yes, that sounds fun."

"I found one that's a picture of Kendra's face," Mandy unenthusiastically picked up another box off the shelf.

"That's...she must love stroking her ego," Turner rolled his eyes. "Although who am I kidding, she's the host of this show and doesn't shy away from mentioning it at every juncture while trying to remove the blame for herself, of course she's stroking her ego with this."

"Alright, let's get started on this," Mandy re-centered their focus as she spilled the pieces onto the table.

---

Kendra looked on with disdain.

"Oh, come on!" she yelled, kicking a trash can across her office. "I am not stroking my ego! I'm just running the game! That was supposed to be a funny little gag, not an opportunity for those two to drag my name through the mud!"

"Calm down, Kendra, it'll all come out in the wash," she told herself after letting herself stew for a second. "You're in control of the game here, no need to pitch a hissy fit."

She collected herself before sitting back down at her chair.

"It's not even like they're doing anything," she complained. "Paige at least got something going down the path, Mandy's just being her boring ol' self again."

"It's not like I can break her spirit though...although..."

"What about Kathryn's date?" she mused. "She's got gumption, sure, but that can be refitted in order to fit more into Turner's harem, no? Although, knowing her track record, she'd immediately get suspicious of me and then we'd be back at square one."

She looked at the calendar of the last few dates that were coming after Mandy. Kathryn, Becca, and Sara.

"This is what I get for playing all my cards early," Kendra grimaced. "I thought something would happen with Emma, or Abby, or Paige, but no dice, and now I'm stuck here."

---

Meanwhile, Sara was trying to sleep soundly, but it just wasn't happening easily at night. She was still remembering the night that she was sleeping with Charlotte when Lauren was out on a date.

Sure, she was fond of her current roommate. Kathryn was a lot of fun to be around, and kept her head on straight while she was aloof and lost in the clouds, but there was just an unspoken kinship that she had developed with Charlotte because they had a lot of similarities, despite all of their differences.

Most of all, though, she missed the sensation of sleeping next to Charlotte that night. Kathryn wasn't necessarily an unpleasant person to be around. She didn't move around in bed that much, start sleep-talking, or have very vivid dreams that caused her to wake up constantly, but that was exactly the problem. Sleeping next to Kathryn was like sleeping next to a dead body, essentially.

Converse to that, Charlotte occasionally moved around a bit in her sleep, reminding Sara that, y'know, she was alive. Plus, the way her golden hair spilled out over the pillow, it was just endearing in a way. Sara wasn't necessarily attracted to Charlotte (although there was no denying that she was pretty), but the romanticism of the whole situation got her motor running in a way that would've never happened before the start of the show.

"I have so many ideas for my date night with Turner," she said out loud. It wouldn't matter how loud she said it, Kendra wouldn't wake up if she started playing heavy metal music through seven different speakers right next to the bed.

---

"Well, I suppose you're over the hump," Mandy said as Turner climbed into bed.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You're past what are probably the worst dates you'd have to go through this week," she clarified. "Obviously, Paige, but also Emma and Abby, since Kendra seems to be trying to get them to be the first people you go for, at least in terms of the transformations they got. Emma's literally gonna get thrown into situations with you, and she's molding Abby to be the girl of your desires."

"I guess that's true," he agreed. "Although, I will say, their dates were more fun than anything else."

"Really now?" she raised an eyebrow. "They were more fun? Those three were the only dates where girls got victory points from you, and you said that two of them were fun?"

"Okay, not fun in that way," he laughed a little bit. "But I was able to forget everything that was going on around here with them. Same with you too, and really everyone's date except for probably Paige's, since her date was just an elaborate ploy to try and convince me to come back to her."

"That...doesn't surprise me as much as it should," she sighed deeply, like she was wishing her ally was a little less dramatic with everything. "But anyways, back to my point, you only have three more dates on the docket. I'm sure they've all got something fun planned for you, and you won't really have to worry much with them like you would with Emma, Abby, or Paige."

"That's true," he assented. "Hey, thanks for taking the time to actually talk with me tonight instead of trying to figure me out. I guess it helps that you already know me a lot, but you've actually given me a great outlet to share what's been going on."

"No problem," she simply responded. "That's what I'm here for, and I sincerely doubt I'll be changing course, given that Kendra is trying to give me more 'expertise'."

She said the word 'expertise' with so much faux-pretentiousness that Turner couldn't help but laugh before sleep took the both of them.