Stepping Out : Young Adult Romance Books (A New Adult Romance Story "Swanson Sisters Series" : Book 2) by Amelia Jones Page A

thoughts of causes of kidney failure, when someone bumped into her. Alicia had been standing on the patio near the corner of the house and the intruder into her thoughts had been walking close to the wall from the side deck to the back deck and clearly not watching where he was going.
    “Wow,” the man said. He was tall, blonde, broad shouldered and white toothed. When Alicia looked at him, all she really saw were his big white teeth smiling at her. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “Did I make you spill your drink?”
    Alicia looked at the glass in her hand. It had been empty for at least half an hour and she had been holding it simply to make herself look busy. She knew all the tricks of avoiding conversation in crowded situations. Holding an empty glass and make herself look as if she was waiting for someone to return was one of them.
    “No,” she said. “Luckily it was empty.” She spoke in a friendly tone that was supposed to have a dismissal note to it. After all, she was trying to project the semblance of waiting for someone to return.
    He reached for the glass, “Well we can’t have that. Let me get you a refill.”
    “I’m okay.” She held onto a glass tightly which was a good thing because he had already grasped it and was trying to pull it out of her hand. He seemed surprised that she wasn’t ready to relinquish the glass but he was undeterred by her resistance.
    They locked eyes, each of them with a hand on the empty glass and neither of them willing to let it go. It could’ve been embarrassing, Alicia thought, but there was an obstinate streak in her and she was not willing to let go of the glass. Yet, she didn’t want to become childishly aggressive about it.
    She chose to keep a tight grip on the glass and politely ask, “Are you a friend of Jack’s?”
    He gave her an even bigger smile, a dimple appearing on his right cheek. A lock of his straight blonde hair had fallen loose over his forehead. She realized that he was strikingly handsome and immediately realized that it was unusual for her to even notice such things.
    “No. Are you?” he replied.
    “No,” she said. Just as she would not give up her grasp on the glass, she was not about to volunteer any information.
    “I’m Howard.”
    “Are you a friend of Sophie’s?” Alicia asked.
    “No. At least I don’t think so. I do know a couple of Sophies but I hadn’t seen either of them here this evening. Unless you mean you know one of them?”
    What a silly remark, Alicia thought. She knew other Sophies as well but what did he expect her to do? Start playing the “do you know Sophie Smith?” game. She was trying to think of a snappy comeback remark but he got there first.
    “Unless your name is Sophie? I don’t know you – yet.”
    “No I’m not Sophie.”
    “Are you Brenda?”
    “No.”
    “ Marion?”
    “No.”
    “Betty?”
    She lo oked at him and shook her head lightly, not in response, but in that tired kind of resignation someone gives when they are simply annoyed. “Are you going to guess all the women’s names that you know?”
    “Well I’m going to have to,” he said. Then he snapped his fingers as if he had just made a discovery. “Unless, of course, you tell me what your name is. That would really speed up the process.”
    “What process?”
    “The process of getting to know you.”
    “Well if it’s going to be such a chore, why bother?”
    He smiled at her and tilted his head in an engaging manner. “Oh I don’t think it’s going to be a chore at all. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun – getting to know you.”
    Howard’s flirtatious manner relaxed Alicia. She knew that she could never take such a person seriously and because she couldn’t take him seriously there was no need to be on guard.
    “Well then let’s have a crash course in getting to know each other so we can get over and done with. I’m Alicia. I’m in the nursing program. That’s about it.” She hesitated and realized that