Meet Geo

"Hi. Geovanne Estevez." He held his hand to me.

I wanted to say that I knew who he was and repeating introductions weren't necessary since time was actually ticking. Two thousand quality photos in over a week wasn't a piece of cake. How could he be so cool at a time like this?

Nevertheless, I accepted his friendly gesture. "Hi. Zoey Anderson. Again."

"Finally." He grinned, almost as if he meant something else. But taking the fact that he was Matt's brother, I pushed the thought aside. "Call me Geo."

By the standards of the Reagan girls, Geo was considered a hottie, just like his twin brother. His always-best-kempt looks made him that young CEO-type of hunk every Reagan girl dreamt of. The half-Filipino, half-Brazilian kind. That's just about what I knew of him. All the rest were fed to me by Jazz. And Matt himself, back when we were dating.

According to Jazz, Geo was like my brother Zach. Nice guy. Carefree. Funny. Overly friendly. A sunshine on his own. Although, I might have noticed most of these to be true, I still couldn't picture him. Well, first of all, the moment I tried to imagine him, I saw Matt. If I tried to imagine how he was, I saw Zach. So each moment I actually saw him sauntering down the hallways of the admin building, I usually took a nice short peek. Not that I could take long ones, anyways, since he was always crowded on by his army of squealers. But yeah, I guessed if people were to ask me who Geovanne Estevez was, without considering his brother, I would say he was the Berkeley Student Council Secretary who went out of his way to cheer students up.

He was the exact opposite of me. I would love to say a lot more than that, of course, but since he hadn't seem to be too interested about getting acquainted at all, I never had the chance to get to know him. I mean, he did send me a friend request on Facebook back then, but nothing went on after that. No message. No pokes. No tags. No nothing.

Not that I was expecting something to happen. I just thought maybe he'd be the first friend I'd have, besides Jazz, when I came here to BRIS. He was harmless enough, I thought, since Jazz introduced us. But I gave up waiting after a week. And I hadn't opened my account since.

"You look uncomfortable." Geo had to take smaller strides while walking just so we'd be side by side. While I didn't ask for it, I didn't say anything to stop him either.

He was having a hard time. Slow wasn't exactly his kind of pace, not only because he was a lot taller than me, giving him longer legs and strides, but also because he really was used to going around the campus in a much livelier pace. So I could only imagine how much of him wanted to scurry away now, while I took my time walking and looking around.

"I am uncomfortable," I said. "Aren't you?"

"No." He chuckled. "Why would I be?"

I shrugged my shoulders, supposing he'd ask me if it was because of Matt, but he didn't. I didn't want to be the first to mention him, too. "Because we're bound by time?"

He laughed. It wasn't exactly the reaction I was expecting from him. "We have almost eleven days until the opening. That's about 200 photos a day." He placed his hands inside his pockets. "Besides, I was going to have a media buddy, anyway. I suggested that photo wall so I'm in charge of it."

Oh, you little devil!

I stopped and eyed him accusingly, shaking my head to show my contempt.

"Goddamn it! This is your fault?" I exclaimed, waving a hand in the air. "How could you suggest the wall to have 2,000 photos?"

He raised both palms to show surrender, still smiling. "Hear me out, okay? Ten years ago, they did a photo wall with a thousand photos. Same idea. Same event. I suggested this because I thought it would be cool. After all, we're running over-all champion for seven years now." He paused, and before I could speak, he added, holding his forefinger up, "But I suggested it even before this punishment. I didn't think they'd use this against us."

"It backfired, you mean." I narrowed my eyes, my voice almost faltering as I hid my laughter. If it wasn't as funny as I thought it was, I would've swung my backpack toward his gorgeous face and hurt him purposely.

"Apparently." His eyes had a different shade of grey when he was serious, and that caught me off-guard. I never knew eyes like his could be so calming. "Zoey, I cannot not compete this year."

Was he begging me? I decided against the thought. Men like him didn't beg. They asked. Arrogantly.

"This isn't my fault. I was dragged into this."

"I know, I know. Blame it on the weatherman." He waved his hand dismissively and turned away.

I still couldn't believe I was doing this because of him and of Maria!

"Look at it this way. Would you rather clean the World Park? Or the gyms? Or perhaps you'd rather be a water girl. I'm sure the teams would want to have a girl handing out cups of water for a change."

"Right now? Yes!" I deliberately widened my eyes at him.

It wasn't just the club we were talking about here. It was my ticket to pass Ms. Rivera's class. I would have been happier if like Maria, I just made pompoms and handed them out to the audience at each game. That would've been an easier punishment.

Just when I thought the day wasn't gonna get any worse, the strap of my backpack snapped and a lot of my school stuff scattered to the ground.

"Shit!" I groaned. I sat on the ground to sulk, realizing I wasn't myself. Imagine me, leaving my backpack open when I had a lot of gadgets with me.

Geo ran to my aid and helped me pick my notebooks up. "Will you calm down," he said. He sat on his heel and propped a forearm to his knee. "You'll conquer that photo wall."

My heart began to thud loudly against my chest. I didn't want to recognize that as a moment, so I settled on the idea that it happened because he looked so much like Matt.

"Besides, whatever happens, I'm right here," he whispered.

Swallowing hard, I hurriedly stood up. "Uh…I'm gonna change clothes and get my cameras. Yeah." And then to the direction of the Reagan dorms, I broke into a half-run.