Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke #1)

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I stepped out of the car and closed the door behind me as I slowly began making way towards the front door of Talia's girlfriends' house. Glancing at the outside of the house, I felt like I was out of breath with the beautiful detail on the dark coloured walls. Pushing down the creases on my newly bought gold dress (which Gemma should be thanked for showing me the boutique) as I stopped in my step and knocked on the door.

Loud music could already be heard playing from the outside of the house and cars of all sorts were parked at the front of the house. As I was looking around, I was startled to find the door opening. In front of me was a sweet looking girl with long blonde hair and wore a vibrant white dress. She smiled as she saw me and opened up the door slightly more. In the background, I could see the large crowd of people who I assumed had a thing to do with the club as the all danced to the music and chatted amongst each other.

"Hi, I'm Scarlett Wilde. Luke invited me here, I am at the right place aren't I?"

"Of course you are sweetheart. It's lovely to meet you Scarlett, I'm Crystal. Please, don't worry about anything. Feel free to come inside and enjoy the party." She added with a bright smile as she allowed me to enter, closing the wooden door behind us.

"Are you sure that this is a club celebration party? It feels more like a party that Jay Gatsby would throw." I said aloud as I looked around the large space filled with a large mass of people moving excitedly around the room, tables full of delicious looking foods and a vibrant odour of what appeared to be vanilla.

"Thank you so much but really my parties aren't anything really. I just wanted to help the team celebrate their new season. The boys aren't anywhere to be seen but hopefully we'll catch up with them later." She said dragging me over to a less noisy area as she looked up at me and smiled once again.

"You look beautiful Crystal."

"Who me? Please, I just threw this thing together. It's a pretty old dress, you on the other hand Scarlett look like a complete stunner." She said as I laughed but thanked her anyway. We both got shot glasses of soda since I wasn't much of a drinker and Crystal said she has steered clear away from alcohol due to her upbringing and her parents.

"So how long have you known the boys for?" I asked, trying to start a nice conversation with the new girl to me whom I just had met tonight.

"Since I began dating Michael back in year 11. So that was quite a while ago. How about you Scarlett?"

"I only met the boys a couple of weeks ago as part of work. But I guess I've spoken a lot more with Luke, Mitch, Jackson and Marcus. Other than that I haven't really gotten a chance to meet anybody else from the team." I said not mentioning my run in with Michael last week because it would have been pretty inappropriate for me to do so.

"Oh my gosh, we need to change that like tonight Scarlett. They're all really nice guys so I guess you won't have any issue with making new friends." She said as Mitch and Luke began their way to us.

"Hey ladies, how are you both doing tonight?"

"Mitch, the flirtatious act is starting grow old now. Settle down mate." Luke muttered to Mitch as he rolled his eyes. We both replied to his question as Crystal excused herself to check on important party prep I guess, leaving the three of us alone.

"I'm glad you made it Scarlett. Anyway, do you want to see some of the guys. I'm sure they'd be excited to see you again."

"Sure Luke, you and Mitch lead the way." I said adding a smile as they both took me to meet the other boys of the team. First up was Jackson, who was excited to see me again although seemed to be having a terrible time explaining a joke - or so that's what it appeared to be - to another teammate of his Clay Smith. I let out a slight chuckle leaving the pair of them to get back to what they were up to. I was personally introduced to one of the big men of the group, Tom Boyd who was chatting with who could have been a VFL player that I couldn't really identify who it was. We engaged in a conversation for a while until he had to excuse himself as he needed to take a phonecall so that was the end of our chat. Ironically I met three of the guys other halves (or better, as they would describe it themselves), there on the night; Abby Gilmore who was the fiancé of Jake Stringer, Nicki Grey the girlfriend of Jackson and Vanessa Wilson, girlfriend of Jordan Roughhead.