Captivation

Captivation Part 14

Three months later Caitlin found herself attending a treasure hunt charity event. Georgia was supposed to be here. But she was home with the latest addition to the family. So instead, Caitlin had been drafted in to attend.

"Hi, I'm Caitlin." She held her hand out to the woman standing in front of her and smiled as she took stock of one of her team-mates for the day. They were chalk and cheese. Caitlin was wearing what most people would consider conservative clothes in the extreme, while her co-team member was barely wearing her clothes. Beside the skimpily clad woman was a man who looked nervous about his own shadow. Caitlin wondered how the three of them came to be in the same team. Random choice?

"Yes, I know. Candy." The buxom, scantily clad woman responded with a generous smile. "This is Nigel." She giggled as if she was a three year old rather than a woman a good couple of decades older. "We are waiting for one more. Lisa is organising a last minute replacement."

"Oh." Caitlin held her hand out to Nigel, "Hi." She smiled warmly, "I don't think we've met."

'N, n, no." He stammered then pushed at the sleeves of his large grey jumper before settling on crossing his arms. "We, we, we haven't. But I know who your father is. He's, he's ama, ama, amazing." He said it with a fair degree of awe in his voice, and even more respect.

Caitlin ignored his last statement. Not wanting to have to go through the routine of pointing out she wasn't her father. She glanced around, "It looks like they are going to mint money given the number of people here for this." It was a fund raising event, which is why Georgia had signed up for it. But now that she was here, she was starting to wish that she'd volunteered to babysit her adorable three week old nephew. That way Georgia could be here instead of Caitlin.

"Yes. It's great, isn't it. I came because they have a disco afterwards." Candy announced and gestured wildly, causing the already short, and very fitting shirt to ride up some more, leaving a bigger gap between her t shirt and short shorts. "I went last year and it was great." Candy all but beamed at her fellow team members.

"Good party?" Caitlin asked dryly.

"The best. They had a terrific band." Candy pulled the already tight t shirt tighter as she jammed her fingers into the rear pockets of her shorts. "And there were heaps of guys." She said and looked over at Caitlin with broad grin on her lips.

"So what usually happens at this stage?" Caitlin hoped Georgia wasn't expecting her to stay for the party afterwards. Surely she could just do the treasure hunt search, make the effort to find a few bits of stuff and then leave. Job done.

"Well, we get into our teams of four, and we are given the list of treasure and then we have three hours to find what is on the list." Candy said in a rush, her enthusiasm for the whole event was clear. Caitlin wondered why traipsing around with strangers was considered fun.

"Sounds simple enough." Caitlin mulled as she continued to scan the vicinity. Lots of small clusters of people appeared to be preparing for this treasure hunt. They looked to be enjoying the prospect of spending time searching for stuff. Why? Caitlin knew this was meant to be some sort of blind dating exercise for the singletons, and some sort of social time out for the couples. But really wouldn't it have been better to have just gone out to dinner? Or a night at the cinema?

"Yeah it's great. Then before the disco starts at 8, they announce who's won." Candy beamed.

Caitlin sighed. This was clearly something that was taken very seriously. Winners? Wasn't the object of the exercise just to spend time with people? Banking her growing irritation, Caitlin asked with pseudo politeness, "How did you go last year?"