Page 14 of Betting on the Bad Boy

“I think I’m the one who owes you.”

“Hey, I’ll take a date any way I can get one.”

I rolled my eyes. He’d been asking me to go out with him since we met back in grad school. “It’s not a date, just a cup of coffee.”

“You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.” He shrugged.

I shook my head. “Come on, let’s caffeinate.”

He held the door for me as we walked out onto the quad.

“It’s gorgeous out here,” I said.

“Yeah, hard to believe that in a couple of weeks this place will be knee deep in snow,” Murph said.

“I don’t care. I love it.” I spread one arm out in front of me, gesturing to the masterpiece of Mother Nature’s canvas that was fall in the upper Midwest. The trees were on full display. Bold oranges and yellows played against a background of deep green pines and a brilliant blue sky.

“Did you knock your head when you fell down? You sound a little loopy.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and pulled open the door to the student center. We walked inside and joined the long line of sleepy-eyed students looking for their morning jolt of java.

“You grew up out west, right?” Murph asked.

“Yeah. Orange County, California.”

“Why the hell did you come here?”

“My dad’s from the Midwest. I wanted to experience what it would be like to live here for a while. Besides, the program here is one of the best.”

“Why not USC? They’ve got a great program and you could have done your reading assignments at the beach.” Murph shook his head in mock disdain.

“Believe it or not, even the beach gets old. I was ready for a change of scenery.”

“I bet. Sand in all the wrong places. Too much sun? Must be a horrible place to grow up.”

Actually, I’d enjoyed growing up in California. It would always be home base for me. But my mother was there, and it had been time for me to get out from under her wing and see if I could fly on my own.

As far as I could tell, none of my classmates had figured out yet that my mother was Claire Kepner, a well-known Christian author and wife of Clem Kepner, a famous local televangelist. It helped that we didn’t share a last name. I’d kept my dad’s name when my mother got remarried.

At least my mom’s sphere of fame and fortune hadn’t caught up with me yet. It was just a matter of time, but I vowed to enjoy my anonymity as long as it lasted.

We reached the counter, and I placed my order. “What can I get you, Murph?”

“Just a large cup of coffee. None of that frou-frou stuff for me,” he said.

I paid for our coffee, and we stepped aside to wait for our drinks.

“So did you have a good weekend?” he asked.

“Yeah, pretty low key. I stayed in and worked on putting together a few assignments.” Assumingassignmentswas a fair way of describing my latest manuscript.

“That explains why I didn’t see you at McGovern’s.”

Quite a few of my colleagues had a standing Saturday night get together at a local pub. McGovern’s was a little classier than the beer-sloshing dive bars the undergrads frequented.

“Were there a bunch of people there?” I asked.

“Yeah, a decent crowd. They had book trivia going again. One of these days, you’ve got to come.” He chuckled. “We could have used some help with the erotic category.”