Page 6 of Valentine's Day Daddy

I hang back and watch as people mill about, checking out the food table and the bar for the next half hour. But then the music stops, and I see Mimi on the stage next to the DJ with the microphone in her hand.

“Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Soulmates Valentine’s Speed Dating. We want to thank you all for being here tonight and for being part of our community,” she intones, sending the room into a fit of wild cheering and applause.

More applause sounds around the room and everybody’s smiling, in good spirits, and seem eager to get started. Good for them but this is definitely not my scene. I glance at the doors and wonder if I can slip out without Mimi noticing. I drain my glass, set it on the end of the bar, and begin to discretely make my way to the door when Mimi starts to speak again and when a bright spotlight falls on me, it freezes me in my tracks.

“Before we get started, I wanted to introduce everybody to somebody very special. Please give a warm welcome to Ezra Mullen, CEO of the Mullen Media Group and founder of Soulmates-dot-com,” Mimi says.

The cheering and applause are nearly deafening, and I glance up at Mimi to find her smiling back at me, knowing there’s nothing I can do to escape now. I give her a look though that promises retribution. She laughs. Putting on my best smile, I give everybody a wave. The spotlight finally swings back to Mimi and though I’m tempted to leave, I know I’m stuck. The optics of me walking out now that I've been introduced would be bad and would probably ruin the event. Mimi obviously knew that which is why she made such a spectacle of me. I’m so going to kill her.

“Ezra, like all of you here, is seeking a connection. Like you all, he’s seeking love,” Mimi says. “And like you all, he’s got a lot to offer another person. The right person. And that’s what we strive to do at Soulmates—match you up with the right person. Your person. The partner who will be with you through thick and thin, good and bad, for the rest of your life.”

More applause and cheering erupt around the room, and I’m forced to admit, Mimi knows how to give a speech. She knows how to work a room. Not that I’m surprised. She’s a talented and driven woman who’s burdened with an overabundance of charisma. It’s too bad I’m going to kill her and dump her body in a river.

“But one thing I want you all to remember,” Mimi goes on. “Tonight is all about having fun. You may meet somebody special, and you may not. But getting out and having fun—being willing to take that chance—that’s what’s important. After all, you never know where you’re going to meet that special somebody—but being willing to step outside your comfort zone and roll the dice certainly helps your chances!”

As she speaks, she’s looking straight at me. Very subtle.

“All right, let’s get started. Ladies, the tables are yours,” Mimi says and waits for the women to take a seat. Once they’re all seated, she turns back to the crowd. “Gentlemen, you will wait until you hear the bell chime and take your first seat—find the table number on the slip you were given upon entry to the hall. That will be where you start. You will have four minutes to catch the eye of the ladies, and when the bell chimes, you will move to the table on your right then so on and so forth. At the end of the evening, you gentlemen will turn in a card with the table number of the lady who caught your fancy, and ladies, you will turn in a card with the number on the button the gentlemen are wearing whom you’d be interested in getting to know better. Then, if we have a match, the lady will be given the gentlemen’s personal details and it will be up to her to make the call. Sound simple enough?”

There’s more applause and cheering as I feel the energy around me ramping up. It's like the energy of a crowd outside a store on Black Friday, moments before they open the doors.

"Okay, gentlemen, find your first table, and let's get this party started," Mimi calls out. "And remember, have fun tonight!"

The men stampede off like a herd of water buffalo and not having any desire, to be part of that crush of humanity, I hang back and order another scotch. I watch Mimi descend the stairs and make a beeline straight for me.

“That was subtle,” I say when she gets to the bar. “Very subtle.”

“You don’t want me to be subtle, Ezra. You never have.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

“What’s your first table number?” she asks.

“No idea.”

She sighs dramatically and reaches into my jacket pocket, withdrawing the small card with the number forty-five on it, and shows it to me. After that, she reaches in again and pulls out the button with the number thirty-seven on it, and pins it to my lapel.

“There we are. It’s all official now,” she says.

“So glad to hear that.”

“You better go get on over to table forty-five,” she croons. “She’s waiting for you.”

“Awesome,” I mutter.

Maybe it’s morbid fascination driving me as I walk over to the table—no, I’m sure that’s it—and drop down across from a slender woman with mousy brown hair. She’s got brown eyes behind thick glasses, pale skin, and a mild, meek demeanor. She can’t even look me in the eye. The bell rings and we sit there for a minute and a half with her staring at the table seemingly unable to speak.

“So,” I say, trying to break the ice. “What do you do for a living?”

She raises her eyes and then quickly looks down at the table again. "I—I'm a librarian."

That was actually going to be my first guess. She seems the sort who can’t relate to anything other than books or cats. Certainly not other people. And so, we spend the last minutes in the most awkward and uncomfortable silence I think I’ve ever experienced. I have to fight the urge to shout for joy when the bell rings, releasing me. And so, it went for what felt like an eternity. There isn’t one single woman I’ve either felt connected to or shared any sort of spark or chemistry with.

I was just trying to get through the rest of the night for Mimi's sake when I sit down at what feels like my five-hundredth speed date of the night. The second I sit down though, I feel my stomach clench. The woman looking back at me is young—probably half my age—and is stunningly beautiful. She brushes her long deep red hair back over her shoulder and stares back at me, looking every bit as over it as I feel. Her green eyes sparkle like emeralds in the candlelight and she’s got a smile on her full, red lips that looks as wooden and false as mine.

“Hi,” she says. “Ashton Rodgers.”

“Ezra—”

---