Looking For Mr Forever

“So, we’ll see you on Sunday then?” said Mitch Wilson, as he lounged nonchalantly against the filing cabinet.

He was referring to their employer’s corporate team-building day, slated for Sunday at a paintball range. Mitch was an estimator in the design and construct team. He always gave the appearance of a young man with his foot firmly on the first rung of the corporate ladder.

Cadence McKenzie eyed her fellow workmate as she prepared to go home. It was five o’clock on Friday and she never stayed back late on a Friday if she could help it. She finished tidying her desk and logged off while Mitch silently watched every move, like some giant bird of prey. Or was it just a hungry vulture? Cadence allowed herself a small smile as that amusing image popped into her head.

Picking up her purse, Cadence flicked him a casual glance over her shoulder as she made her way out the office door. The waves of her shoulder-length brown hair swished over her shoulder. She was feeling saucy.

“Probably.”

He followed her through to reception. He was grinning as he watched her heading out the building’s front entrance and down the steps. When she reached the parking lot, she turned back and caught him still looking. She hoped the short, close-fitting skirt she chose to wear to work this morning was outlining the curve of her hips and her thighs. Her taut shape was a testament to her athletic lifestyle. No harm in giving him something to admire, she thought.

Despite the uninterested front Cadence had shown Mitch, her heart was beating a little faster and an unexpected buoyancy gave her step a satisfying lift as she located her car. Yes, she thought with relish. Mitch Wilson. She had been eyeing his cute butt ever since she had taken on this job at Jenkins Construction.

On the drive home, Cadence thought a bit more about Mitch Wilson. She was in Contracts Administration, located close to the Estimating department. There was always some interaction between the two departments and there had been some casual contact between them. Cadence had encouraged a little light-hearted banter, some coy flirting, but it really amounted to nothing. Just some fun.

Through the office grapevine she had picked up the general feeling that he thought he was a bit of a lady’s man, and he cultivated a rather harmless, cocky attitude. Just a typical young man, she thought. She certainly hadn’t heard any dirt on him and that was a good sign. Still, was he the sort of guy she could settle down with? Probably not, she decided. Not enough substance. Or was she being too hasty to judge?

Cadence stopped at the mall to pick up a few supplies on her way home. She was soon back on the road again. Her thoughts turned once more to Mitch Wilson. From lunchroom chit chat she had gathered he was very interested in sport. He played Futsal and was an avid cyclist, so he was an active type like herself. She wondered if it was wise to pursue someone she worked with, since office romances could prove unpleasant if things went sour. But she could not deny her attraction to him. What was not to like? He was taller than her, solidly built but trim and he was a blue-eyed blond – her favorite.

Her thoughts jumped back in time to her first love. ‘The-one-that-got-away’. He had been tall, blond and athletic. He loved his water sports and they had spent a lot of time at the beach that perfect, carefree summer. They were both eighteen and madly in love. He was her first. While that had been eight years ago, it still affected her preference in men. But search as she might in these intervening years, she had never been able to find someone who could measure up to that first love.

Cadence thought about her current situation. Still single at twenty-six, she was definitely on the look-out for Mr. Forever. Just like everybody else she knew; she wanted the magic of meeting her soul-mate and settling down. Yes, she was ripe and ready for a long-term commitment with someone who also wanted to start a family. Was that such a bad thing?

As that feisty lady of the silver screen, Mae West, once stated, “A good man is hard to find but a hard man is good to find.”

Cadence could relate to that philosophy. Keeping in shape, well-groomed and not hard on the eye, Cadence thought her chances of exchanging all the men out there for one good one shouldn’t be the impossible dream.

Working as she was in the male dominated construction industry, Cadence was tempted by opportunities at every level: from the lean and muscular tradies working on the construction sites all the way through to the suits in management, she was surrounded by men. But at this time in her life, it wasn’t a casual encounter she was after; it was something more meaningful. Something that could lead to that happy-ever-after.

She remembered her mother’s advice to avoid getting involved with someone at work. But really, who else do you see all day, every day, all year long, but the people you work with? Heaps of people meet their partners through work, she thought. The alternative, of course, was if you had a hobby or a sport where you could regularly meet like-minded people.

Still, she could hardly call a game of paintball an ideal opportunity to breathe life into any of her fantasies that starred a ‘desirable man’ and herself. Could that man be Mitch, or would she be making a mistake she would come to regret later?

The old fogies who were on the board of directors at Jenkins Construction occasionally planned activities out of hours, for employees. So, paintball was the agenda for Sunday. Attendance was compulsory. They claimed these experiences fostered unity by building team spirit, challenging the ingenuity of the individuals that made up their company’s ‘one big family’.

But it wasn’t something genial like picnics, Bar-B-Ques or office parties that the directors believed would build a unified team, it was more demanding situations like orienteering, yacht racing, skiing and - yes - paintball, that would achieve their goals. Testing their mettle. Forging solidarity. The usual stuff.

What was she letting herself in for?