Endearment // Royce

ღ Chapter 1 ღ

April 26th, 2016

Jacob Perez

"Jai, I don't think this is necessary..." I mumbled as my sister, who forced me into going to a jazz lounge with her, dragged me into the venue. "What about Jamie?"

"Oh hush up. You're 25 years old for fucks sake, it's time for you to get back out there... Live a little. Jamie is fine, he's with Ray." She said. Jamie is my 2 year old son. Rolling my eyes I reluctantly followed her, seeing the place was completely deserted and only filled with staff.

"Wha- why are we here? There isn't anyone-"

"Don't worry about that. Go have a drink and loosen up, I'll be back in a jiffy." She grinned and scurried away. Shrugging, I decided to march on over to the bar and have a glass of rum and coke. Not knowing what Jai had planned, I drank two just in case.

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  About an hour or so later, the place was filled with people and here I was scrolling through my Twitter feed, retweeting and favoriting anything that entertained me. Hearing that high pitched noise, coming from a microphone I looked up, seeing Jai up on the stage. What is this girl doing, I thought.

  "Hi, everyone." She smiled "I know some of you are wondering what is going on here, so I'm going to tell you. All of you here are all single, some looking to find that special someone while others are simply looking for a good time. Now is your chance, this is a matchmaking process called speed dating. Half of you will take a seat at a specific table and half of you will stand. When I say go the standing party will sit at the table of their choice, you will have 10 minutes to talk and get acquainted with each other before the timer goes off. After your time is up, you will move to the next person. When you feel that connection with a special someone you may leave. But, you can't leave this event alone." She explained.

  "Can I have a shot of tequila with lime please." I sighed, turning to the bartender who chuckled, wiping the counter. "Speed dating isn't your thing, eh?"

  "Dating isn't my thing..." I took the shot to the head and bite down on the lime.

"Give it a shot. I thought online dating was useless until the man of my dreams sent me a message, we met, connected and now we're married and plan on adopting soon. All I'm saying is don't knock it till you try it. You could possibly find your soulmate." He smiled and went to tend to other customers.

          Whatever...

"Jacob." I heard Jai say, tapping my shoulder. "You're at table number 5. We're waiting on you." She pulled my from my seat and over to the table that had my name on it, after sitting me down she went back up to the stage with a stopwatch.

"Okay, the timer will start in, 3.. 2.. 1, date!" She started the timer and people sat down at each table. A tall, caucasian man stood in front of me and sat down. "Hello, I'm Henry." He shook my hand. His hands were very clammy.

        "Jacob." I smiled.

  "So, let's skip all the extra stuff and get to the fun part. How would you like for me to take you back to my place and have a couple of drinks."

   No thanks, I thought while sitting there with a stale face.

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