Page 41 of The Princess and the Pizza Man

As soon as Winter had seen Will sisterless at breakfast, she pounced on him for information. He’d only tell her that Bells wasn’t feeling up to socializing. Something had definitely gone down the night before, but she hadn’t known what, and Winter was determined to find Bells a new beau before they left on Saturday.

She had two full days; difficult, but not impossible. She revisited a few of her previous choices, but both Dave and Eric seemed to be taken with someone else. There had to be someone available still.

After a full day of spying and coming up with no viable candidates, she slunked into one of the chairs in the lounge, watching guests flirt and tease and enjoy themselves, but feeling absolutely no sense of pride in it this time around.

She’d failed. She’d failed when it had probably been the most crucial match of her life. Pain sliced through her gut, and she clutched at it, wishing she could rewind the week and point Maybelle in any direction other than Garreth.

Her eyes lifted to the man holding a drink in the corner, once the most popular person in the room and now very lonely. Garreth took a swig of the dark liquid in his scotch glass, licking his lips when he’d finished. What had happened between the two of them? Winter couldn’t even ask; she’d failed so epically that she didn’t know Garreth well enough to broach the subject.

She’d let the boy from Alabama distract her all week, and the worst part was, she wished he would keep doing so.

The final day of the mystery had always flown by, but this time around, time was working at the speed of light. Winter started the day with Mel and the actors—Michael again seeming incredibly off—then went to breakfast, then an interrogation scene that was always fun, considering that the murderer was different every performance, and then lunch, preparing the ballroom for the evening, and now she was in her dressing room, Bells standing behind her with pins pressed between her lips.

“Dis hair, Vinter,” she said through the bobby pins. “It’s so fick.”

Winter giggled. “What?”

She grabbed a handful from the side where she was working. “Fick! I vet you go froo so much conditioner.”

“Oh,thick.” Winter laughed again and nodded. “Yes, it takes me foreverto blow dry. Sometimes I just say, no thanks and braid it.”

Bells slipped one of the pins from her mouth and pinned down a stubborn curl that’d kept falling into Winter’s line of vision. She’d draped a dress over the mirror, telling Winter that she didn’t want her to see until she was done. It was killing Winter not to take one little peek; Bells had been spraying and brushing and curling and straightening for an hour now.

Winter had kept the conversation light—her hair history or Bells’ past styling experiences—-even though she was dying to ask her about Garreth.

“Almost done,” Bells said after the last pin left her mouth, and Winter wiggled in her seat, sharp needles of pain shooting through her rear end as she tried to wake it back up. “I know it’s a long time to sit still.”

“Something I’m definitely not known for.”

She could feel Bells laugh, but didn’t hear it, which made Winter frown. The past two days the mansion had missed the boisterous voice of the Monroes. Whenever Maybelle had made an appearance, it was silently polite. She’d smiled and made conversation with anyone who approached her, but she hadn’t waved her hands while talking, hadn’t been so loud others could hear exactly what she was talking about.

And Will had been stuck in his own head, it seemed, his eyes lingering on Winter, but his voice staying solidly behind his lips.

Winter took a deep breath, knowing she was almost out of time to say something. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rotten time here,” she said to her hands in her lap. Bells’ fingers paused in her hair.

“Who… I mean, what made you think that?” There was a lightness to her accent, and Winter turned to meet her eyes.

“I know a sad face when I see one.”

Her brows rose, and she tried to shake it off with a smile. “I was just sick yesterday,” she said with a wave, then gently coaxed Winter to look forward again. “Must’ve been all the excitement.”

“Oh…” Winter said, trying not to pry but wanting more than that fib. “Will seemed to think you were ready to leave.”

“Will needs to mind his own.” Her hands were a bit rougher in Winter’s hair, and she pressed her lips together. The urge to probe some more was almost too overwhelming, but Winter could handle it. Often when people snapped like Bells’ had just now, Winter would bite back or lighten things up. She hardly ever kept quiet.

After a few torturous seconds, Bells sighed and rested her hands on Winter’s shoulders. “Geez, I’m sorry. Promise I’m a bright and sunny person on normal days.”

“I know.” Winter grinned. “That’s why I know something’s wrong.”

“You sure it wasn’t Will and his big mouth?”

“He didn’t say anything. It’s been painfully irritating.”

A crack of a real smile broke through the sadness. “Well, rest assured, it isn’t you or the mansion or the murder mystery that has me in this sour mood.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Why not?” She reached up and sprayed back another stubborn strand of hair. “You barely know me.”

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