“You’re a girl,” Aaron blurts out.

“Aren’t you observant?” The blonde’s expressive hazel eyes shine with amusement as she spreads her hands wide at her waist with a light laugh. “Mmmhmm. Last time I checked, I still had all my girly parts.”

And what girly parts they were: hands sweeping airily around the flouncy skirt of a tight, feminine sundress, long tan legs accentuated by the short hemline flaring out around her hips.

Around her tan legs. Shit, did I already say that?

“Tighthead, if that’s Greyson Keller, you are so screwed,” Mason mutters into my ear from behind, poking me in the back with his bony elbow. “Walk away, man, before you look like an even bigger douche.”

I scowl and elbow him in the gut and am satisfied when he grunts. “Shut the fuck up, Mase. You’re not helping.”

Not to mention, this is all his goddamn fault. He couldn’t have done a little more thorough recon work before raising a red flag?

Fuck.

Running a hand through my hair, I give Greyson a once-over from under hooded eyes.

Long, light blond hair falls over her bare shoulders in one of those sexy, messy French braid things, and freckles lightly dance across the bridge of her straight, pert nose. Her chest rises up and down breathlessly, her cheeks taking on a rosy hue as she lets me study her.

God, she’s… she’s gorgeous. Not the ordinary, pretty kind of gorgeous. No. She’s make you want to weep into your beer breathtakingly beautiful.

Or, at least, she is to me.

Fuckity fuck fuck.

“Is… there something I can help you with?” She’s biting down on a pink, pouty lower lip. “Are you fraternity pledges?”

I glance at her friend hovering from behind in the living room, hanging on our every word. She looks amused, entertained, and entirely too pleased with herself. Like a gleeful toddler who didn’t get caught stealing a piece of candy.

Bitch.

CSI Barbie’s laughing gaze shifts to the nitwits standing behind me with unconcealed interest, and I groan. Suddenly, I’m not too thrilled with the idea of confronting this version of Greyson Keller in public. In front of our friends.

I clear my throat. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Privately?”

Greyson nods slowly as her roommate shrugs in acquiescence. The brunette stares me down. “I’m blowing my rape whistle if you’re not back on this porch in ten minutes, asshole.”

She shoots me a cheeky grin.

“Maybe we’ll take a quick walk?” Beautiful, blonde, and female Greyson Keller puts her arm around her friend’s waist. “I’ll stay within shooting distance,” she teases with a glance at me. “Okay?”

I give a jerky nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Let me grab my shoes.”

She releases her friend’s waist and disappears, returning several moments later and a few inches taller, pushing through the screen door and stepping out onto the porch.

Her hot-pink painted toes peek out from a pair of cork wedge sandals, legs going on for miles. Her sundress is everything it should be: tight bodice dipping into a V, giving me the perfect view of her respectable cleavage. The dress is tied in the back with a bow around her small waist, and as she smiles up at me, I swallow back a groan.

Why is she wearing a dress cut like that? Why does she look so goddamn cute? Was she about to go somewhere? Shit, why does she have to look so damn good? Why couldn’t she have been fugly? Why couldn’t she have been a guy?

Why the fuck, why?

Then at least I wouldn’t feel so guilty for wanting to pummel her ass.

I am hating myself right now.

Greyson leads me to the sidewalk and takes a right once we hit the pavement. “Let’s head this way. It leads to a dead end.”

I cram my large hands deep into the pocket of my jeans.

“So…” Her voice hitches in a silent question.

We walk for a few yards before I grow a pair of balls big enough to speak. “Here’s the deal. I came here to beat the shit out of you,” I blurt out. “I thought you were some dude stalking me on Twitter and Facebook. A guy.”

Gasping, she stops in her tracks, shocked. “Why? What! Why?” she sputters. “I don’t understand. Help me understand.”

“On Twitter, are you Grey underscore Keller, Theta Rho?”

She hesitates, turning to face me, biting down on her lower lip. “Yes.”

God, I wish she hadn’t just given me that look.

“I’m Cal Thompson.”

“What?” she shouts. Understanding shines in her eyes, and she takes a stumbling step back onto the grassy curbside. “You can’t be!”

“Oh, I assure you, sweetheart—I am.”

“B-but,” she sputters, a blush making her chest, neck, and face red. “I made you up!” A hand clamps over her mouth as she moans. “Oh my God, this cannot be happening to me right now.”

“Yet here I am.”

I pull out my wallet and produce both my driver’s license and student ID, tossing them at her. Because she wasn’t expecting the onslaught, she misses, and the identification cards flutter to the concrete sidewalk. “There. Take a gander.”

I know it’s rude, but frankly, I don’t give a shit.

With trembling hands, she bends at the knee demurely, sliding a hand along the folds of her skirt to preserve her modesty, and reaching for the ID’s, her long fingers plucking them off the ground.

She studies them both as she stands, her expression crestfallen.

“How? Oh my god, C-Cal. I’m so, so sorry. And embarrassed.” Her hand flies to her mouth. “So embarrassed,” she repeats with a whisper. Grey’s full bottom lip quivers, and she glances back towards her house nervously. “My friends don’t know I made you up. My friends are the reason I made you up.”

Aaron, Mason, and her roommate—all within shooting distance— watch us from the porch fifty yards away, not even bothering to hide their interest.

Shit. I don’t want her to cry—even if what she did was fifty shades of fucked up.

“Explain it to me, then.”

She nods slowly.

Greyson

I cannot believe this is happening.

The guy standing in front of me is so freaking angry, a shocking myriad of expressions dancing across his face: Perturbed. Confused. Stunned. Pissed off.

He looks like he came to beat the crap out of someone and is disappointed he isn’t going to have the opportunity.

I study the planes of his hard face as he walks beside me, a fresh bruise discoloring the rise of his high cheekbone just beneath his left eye, but oddly made less severe by his deep tan. I conclude that he must spend an excessive amount of time outdoors if the sun-kissed tips of the sandy blonde hair curling up from under the lid of his ball cap are any indication.

I take in his eyes: dark pools of cobalt blue made harsh and unforgiving by the severe slashes of dense eyebrows above them. Square jaw with a day’s growth of beard surrounding a full, downturned mouth.

Black stitches mend the gash marring his busted-up lower lip.

Tall—maybe six foot one—with lean hips, I can’t resist letting my eyes wander down the length of him. They take in the broad, sculpted chest, straining against a tight gray Ivy League t-shirt—a shirt that leaves nothing to the imagination, as evidenced by the defined pec muscles outlined by the sheer threadbare fabric.

If Cal’s shoulders are a thing of beauty, then his arms are a thing of art, dense and firm and ripped. A large, intricate tattoo snakes up the tendons of his tricep, twisting up his bicep and disappearing under the sleeve of his shirt. Tan, powerful biceps any girl would want to curl her fingers around with a contented, dreamy sigh.

They’re arms a girl would blissfully want wrapped around her in a crowded bar. Out in public. Or, let’s be honest, a tangle of sheets.