Her Younger Millionaire

Chapter 6

In Aiden’s opinion, team-building workshops were a lot like s*x. He didn’t do a lot of it, but yeah, when a firm asked, sometimes he answered. Especially if he got to spend some time with Tina; she’d been elusive as hell lately.

Team building required preparation, precautions and occasionally embarrassing foreplay, and were based around people working together in harmony to create a mutually fulfilling outcome. Sometimes they were mind-blowingly enjoyable, sometimes they were fun and relaxed, and sometimes they didn’t quite get to where Aiden wanted them to go, but overall they usually provided some kind of positive result for the participants.

Following this analogy, Aiden liked to think of himself as the Ron Jeremy of the team-building world; he nailed it like a pro every time.

Admittedly, the gig had its downsides which was why he rarely took one on. Workshop leaders ranked somewhere between airline stewardesses and children’s television presenters on the list of most infuriatingly cheerful individuals in the world, but Aiden was consoled by the fact that, unlike the real Ron Jeremy, team-building coaches weren’t in danger of contracting STDs on the job (unless they were Benedikt, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy putting himself in that danger at any possible opportunity).

Overall, Aiden was fairly happy with himself, and as he strolled into the Center’s large hall, he sized up the assembled sales associates with a friendly smile.

There were five of them, constituting Denver Adam’s ‘A-Team’; his star associates. Aiden had been asked to show them the ropes of bringing in the money and of course bonding with each other to do it. Small groups were always nicer and he glanced over them quickly, ignoring the leggy chocolate skinned one in the back who hadn’t yet seen him.

Only two of the five looked like they’d rather be eating their own feet than standing there and Aiden beamed. Today was looking promising.

“Can I get a volunteer?”

Aiden’s cheerful question was met with disinterested silence from the group clustered around the seating area. There were two other women, a brunette and a redhead, studiously avoided his gaze; the young blond kid looked panicked at the very suggestion of volunteering; and Aiden was pretty sure the hot older black woman was actually asleep on Aiden’s so called Beanbag Chair of Honesty. The only one who seemed to acknowledge his presence was a dark-haired guy with a mildly terrifying stare and so Aiden gestured for him to come up. “Thanks for volunteering, man.”

Still staring, the guy wandered towards him and Aiden noted the name ‘Carlos’ on his pre-printed name tag before resting a hand on his shoulder and announcing to the group, “So we’re going to start with a game. I-“

“What happened to the standard introductions?” Aiden raised his eyebrows when the woman on the beanbag chair lifted her head up and said, bored, “Y’know, the whole thing where you tell us that ‘teamwork leads to triumph’ and that we should ‘get to know each other so that we can get to know ourselves’.” She rolled her eyes and mocked, “It’s a classic.”

Mentally striking those lines out of his usual script, Aiden took great pleasure in saying, “Nope. I like to shake things up sometimes. We’re going to get loosened up with a game first so if you could all get to your feet…”

He’d learned early on to phrase his instructions as suggestions, and he kept his smile in place as he waited for the rest of the group to get to their feet, peering closely enough to see that the beanbag defiler went by the name ‘Tina’. The blond kid was Frank, the brunette Sarah, and the redhead Claire, and Aiden did his best to commit the names to memory as he addressed the room.

“Okay, the coffee should’ve woken you up already so think of this as a quick ice-breaker to get you loosened up for all the terrible things I’m going to make you do today.”

That got a smile out of the brunette and the kid – Sarah and Frank, he reminded himself easily – and Aiden turned to his volunteer, pulling him down into a crouching position as he said, “All right, this game has three stages. This is your chance to move up through the ranks of evolution to meet your full potential.”

He stuck his elbows out and waddled as much as his crouch would allow.

Carlos stared blankly at him. It was a little unnerving.

“You start off as a chicken,” Aiden explained, still mostly unfazed. “You go find another chicken in the group and you rock-paper-scissors with them.” He smiled when his paper beat Carlos’s rock and rose up to his knees, raising his arms above his head. “Once you win, you get to evolve into a volcano.”

He made a suitably volcano-ish noise, admirably assisted by some impromptu gurgling from Carlos, and continued, “You repeat the process again, only this time if you lose, you have to regress back down to being a chicken. Heartbreaking, I know.”

Carlos squawked mournfully.

“But,” he began with enthusiasm, “if you win, you get to evolve upwards again to the highest evolutionary point possible.” He bounced up to his feet and stretched his arms out wide with a roar, “Dinosaur!”

Tina gaped at him but Aiden was pleased to see that Frank looked genuinely thrilled at the prospect.

“Great. If no-one has any questions, let’s get started!”

He caught Tina’s muttered comment, “Were you high when they taught the theory of evolution?” but no-one raised an actual query and so he clapped in motivation.

“Get in touch with your inner chickens and start when you’re ready!”

Aiden had found that there was something incredibly refreshing about starting with ridiculous games. Everyone was on an equal footing and some inhibitions were usually shed before they got onto more personal matters. Leading by chickeny example, he was glad to see all five of them embrace the game eventually, albeit to different degrees.

Frank and Carlos seemed to enjoy duking it out to become the first dinosaur of the group, which resulted in Frank celebrating by means of a pterodactyl-esque victory dance, and Sarah appeared to have found her calling in life as a happy little volcano. He marked out Claire and Tina as being initially more reticent but when Claire graduated up the evolutionary scale, she used her new-found dino status to mime eating the still chickenified Tina with a supervillain-like cackle.

He’d had Tina down as seriously pissed at him for this from the earlier attitude (and from the possibility that she may have drooled in her sleep on Aiden’s precious, precious beanbag chair) but he found himself watching and smiling when Tina rolled away from Claire’s flailing dino arms with a shout of helpless laughter. Tina’s eyes crinkled at the corners and her white designer tee rode up as Claire tickled along her ribs. Aiden swallowed hard, reminding himself that just because someone looked hot on occasion, it didn’t make it okay for him to stop the session and ask her to adjourn with him to another room. He was being paid for this after all; he could be professional. Still, it was the first time he’d seen Tina so carefree; he wanted to see her laugh like that again.

The Human Knot exercise seemed to go well.

The group worked together to get their arms untangled from each other and Aiden was glad that they appeared to be comfortable in close proximity to each other, even if Frank did seem a little flustered when he found himself pressed between Sarah and Claire.

After going over to offer advice to the group, Aiden still wasn’t quite sure how he ended up bent double with Carlos pressed up behind him but he decided to count it as a win anyway.

Frank rubbed the back of his neck, lips pursed in concentration, and Aiden prompted gently, “You can say whatever you want, man. This is your chance to open up, to let all your colleagues get to know more about you as a person. You don’t need to be afraid of judgment here.”