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My name is Nate the Great. I am a graduate student. I work alone. My dog, Sludge, is sometimes around when I work, but he is not very helpful in the lab. So I, Nate the Great, work alone. Let me tell you about my last experiment.
I had just finished my breakfast. I had pancakes, iced coffee, pancakes, hot coffee, and pancakes. I like pancakes. I also like coffee. I have never met a researcher who does not. The telephone buzzed. I hoped it was a call to offer me a grant so I could turn my prototype for imaging the nerves in octopus arms into a production model. It was not. I had not expected that it would be.
I had also not expected that it would be Annie, because Annie and I usually talk on Thursday evenings, and this was a Tuesday morning. But it was Annie. I knew Annie from a long time ago. Before I was a doctoral student, I was an undergrad. But before that, I was a detective. I found missing things. I found a missing picture of a dog for Annie. That made her smile. Annie smiles a lot. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and she is a civil rights lawyer. I would like Annie, if I liked girls. But I do not like girls. I, Nate the Great, like guys. At least in theory. In practice, I like sleeping with guys more than I like the guys themselves. In theory, there should be something more between me and the guys I sleep with, something that matches the word “like.” But I had not found it yet. Perhaps I needed to apply my detective skills.
While I thought about this, Annie was still on the phone. “Hello?” she said. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am here.”
“Good,” she said. I expected her to start telling me about her work. She likes to tell me about the work she does at the ACLU. It is important work. When I was a detective, I went on adventures and solved problems for people. Now I solve problems for the world. Annie still solves problems for people, and they are bigger than the ones I used to solve. The problems I solve are bigger now, too, and she likes to hear about them. But they are different, and it is more work to explain to myself why they are important. I sometimes miss the smiles that appear on people’s faces when you solve their problems. And being in a lab is more comforting than adventurous. I get some of that back when I hear Annie talk about her courtroom adventures.
“Okay,” said Annie, “but are you actually there? You’re giving me one of those interior monologue silences that sort of suggests you’re not going to actually hear whatever I say next.” She was not wrong. I told her so, and I promised to do better. “Active listening, Nate,” she said. “Pay attention, make people feel listened to, not just passively heard. We’ve been over this.”
“Yes,” I said. “I have been working on it.”
“Good,” Annie said. “Then you’re ready to hear the exciting news. Guess who’s joining your program?”
“Annie,” I said, “I do not guess. I am no longer a detective—”
“Nate, I say this with the greatest of fondness, but you were never a detective. You were a little boy in a deerstalker cap with a basic knowledge of some scientific principles and a passion for research.”
“—but I am a scientist,” I said. I was hoping that my frown was audible over the phone. “I cannot guess who is joining my program without any data on which to base my conclusion.”
“You’d make a terrible lawyer, Nate,” said Annie. “And you seem to have forgotten your most basic detective skills. Not all ‘data’ comes from a chart someone hands to you—by my count, you already have three important premises from which you can begin to deduce.” She pronounced the last word with what I had come to appreciate as a friendly sort of sarcasm.
“Forgive me, Annie, if those three things are not as clear to me as to you. I, Nate the Great, am still only working through my fourth cup of coffee.” I learned the hard way in middle school that not everyone appreciated my self-declared nickname. But with old friends, things were always a little different. Even so, Annie took a little while to calm down from her laughing fit.
“Allow me to enlighten you, then, Mister The-Great. The first two elements can be deduced from a single data point: I called to tell you.”
My detective brain began to work. “Meaning, I assume, that it is someone you know.”
“Ding ding! Got it in one.”
“And the second point, I take it, is that this someone is not only someone you know, but also someone you assume I would be interested to hear about.”
“Correct!”
I continued to think. And I poured myself another cold brew. “What else did you tell me? Where am I supposed to derive my third premise?”
“C’mon, Nate. This isn’t something I told you. This is something you know. Deep in your soul.”
I furrowed my brow. I began to list things I knew. “Ignoring the imponderable philosophical question whether I have a soul, I know that pancakes are the greatest food ever created by mankind. I know that anyone who consumes fewer than three cups of coffee a day is suspicious. I know that octopuses have the ability to make decisions with the nerves in their tentacles without going through the central nervous system in their heads, and once I get a bit more data from my prototype scanner I might even know what that cycle looks like. I know that in 416 BC, the Athenians captured the neutral city-state of Melos. I know that the Chinese word for a skunk is ‘chòu yòu.’ I know—"
“Actually, you’re not far off with that one. Think, what else do you know about skunks?”
“They are black and white. They smell terrible. They are nocturnal, and they forage for food. They are traditionally depicted as amorous, almost to the point of creepiness and stalkerdom.”
Annie broke down laughing at that, in a way that I had never seen her do at any of the actual cartoons. “Ooh la la. You’re closer than you think. How do you know those things?”
“I researched it at some point.” It was starting to come back to me.
“And why did you research it? Think creepy stalker.”
I thought creepy stalker.
“Not him.”
I thought Oliver.
“You got it! Starting in a couple weeks, Oliver will be your new bright-eyed underclassman! He can keep you company while I’m incommunicado preparing for my big trial.”
I sighed, and poured myself another cup of coffee, hot this time. “And you simply could not leave me in ignorant bliss until our regularly scheduled call?”
“Aw, c’mon, Nate. He’s not that bad. Besides, if memory serves, he was into octopi even before you were. How are Pythagoras and Elly doing, anyway? Tell me of their antics! Any more great tank escapes?”
“Annie. The plural is ‘octopuses.’ My octopuses are doing fine. And Oliver is a pest.”
***
Oliver is a pest.
I am not being fair. All that I can say with certainty is that Oliver was a pest. Oliver lived next door to me when I was growing up. He followed me around. One time, he hired me to figure out who was stealing his trash. It was Sludge, my dog, who was younger and less discerning at the time. But before I figured that out, I thought it might have been a nocturnal forager of some kind, and I ran into a skunk who I thought was the guilty party. I did not apprehend the skunk, but I did apprehend a great deal of the foul-smelling fluid it secreted from its anal glands. I spent a long time in the bath the following day.
Even the smell of skunk did not stop Oliver from following me around. He followed me to baseball games when we were kids, which was admittedly useful because without him we would have only had three bases. Less useful was the fact that his base was a gloopy purple approximation of an octopus, which I tripped over and broke my arm. Oliver signed my cast, and then followed me around declaring that he would help me do everything I needed. But Oliver was small, and could not reach most of the things I would have used my arm to get.
My arm healed, and Oliver followed me around at school, signing up for advanced biology classes for no apparent reason other than that I was in them. He followed me around over the summers. When he was old enough, he got a job at the boardwalk popcorn stand I was already working at, where he followed me around instead of doing his job. In high school, he followed me in my ill-fated attempt to start a detective club. (The school decided to bring in “actual detectives” to mentor us, which turned out to mean police officers who mostly told stories of misconduct and offered what sounded like ineffective advice on how to obtain sex from women. I, Nate the Great, the founder of the detective club, quit after three meetings. Oliver quit at the fourth meeting, when I did not show up.)
Oliver did not follow me to undergrad. When I packed up my stuff and headed off to the ivory tower never to return to the ground, he was still quite definitely a kid—cracking voice tinged with just a hint of adulation, desperately hoping for one last growth spurt. I had sort of lost track of him since then, to be honest. I knew he had also studied marine biology. That made sense, and not only because he had followed me into most of the advanced-track classes I had taken. He had also had a bit of an obsession with eels as a kid. Come to think of it, I had probably learned my first cephalopod facts from his inane babbling. But when he went to one coast while I was on the other, it seemed like he had finally found his own way.
And now it looked like he was back to following me. Away from eels, on to cephalopods. In less than a month, he would be joining me in the pursuit of scientific knowledge (and, more important still, a tenure-track position).
Maybe he had changed. With that hopeful thought, I, Nate the Great, poured myself another cup of coffee and put on my boots to go into the lab.
***
As it turned out, I would soon discover that Oliver had changed. I put him out of my mind for the next few weeks. My octopuses would not take care of themselves, after all. I put him out of my mind extremely successfully. In fact, I put out of my mind everything other than my work. I do not think I saw anyone other than my labmates or my IHOP waitress. And so I was very surprised when Sludge and I got to campus one morning, bleary-eyed after only three cups of coffee, only to see a strikingly handsome, tall, skinny blond, with a swimmer’s build that was apparent even as he sat against the wall outside the door to my lab. I was significantly more surprised when the stranger leapt to his feet, yelled mine and Sludge’s names, and ran over to embrace me. I hugged him back, of course. I, Nate the Great, am by no means ignorant of the appropriate response when in the arms of an attractive man.
The hug went on long enough to become awkward, especially absent any verbal response from me. And I began to piece together some clues.
- Clue Number One: this stranger knew Sludge’s name. While my name appears on faculty directories, given my teaching position, Sludge holds no official position with the university. Therefore, this person must have some personal connection to me.
- Clue Number Two: when he exclaimed my name, he didn’t say “Nate” or “Nathan.” He said “Nate the Great.” Since I had discarded that title for public use following some particularly unpleasant reactions in middle school, my acquaintance with this fellow must have been at least 10 years old.
- Clue Number Three: oh, right. Annie had told me he would be here.
By this point, our hug had reached a point where it would go from awkward to creepy if I did not do something. So I, Nate the Great, did something. “Oliver!” I said, packing the name with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. I stopped squeezing him and began to pat his back in an affectionate but plausibly hetero manner. “It has been a while.”
He hugged me a little tighter for a moment. It felt good. And then he let go. “Seriously, right? Last time you saw me, I didn’t know the difference between an arm and a tentacle. Now, I know enough to point out the analytical errors in your article on the herd behavior of cuttlefish. To be precise—”
I cut him off. “Oliver, it is nice to see you. But we cannot have a conversation about substantive scientific theory before I: (a) let Sludge lie down on his bed in the lab; (b) check on the progress of my specimens; and (c) have at least three more cups of coffee. And at any rate, what were you doing here this early? I thought that orientation began at noon.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to get here early—y’know, scope things out, see old friends.” He ruffled my hair. It was disconcerting. Previously, he would not have been able to reach my head. And now he was reaching down to pat me. “And I found two!” He gestured to Sludge, who bounded up with as much speed as he ever did. Which was not very much, but his enthusiasm was noted nevertheless.
Oliver abandoned me for the moment, returning to the floor to cuddle with my dog. I seized the opportunity to open the lab so I could start brewing some coffee. “Are you coming in, or do you have more to take care of before they orient you on the ways of our program?” I asked.
“Nah, nothing much. Figured I’d just chill with you for a bit.”
“That works,” I said, putting some ice in a mug and placing it under the machine’s nozzle before turning it on. I quickly slurped down the subpar lab coffee before starting another mug brewing. “What are you thinking of for your dissertation?”
“Oh, I haven’t really decided yet.” Oliver looked bashful, which made the situation feel a little more familiar. I turned my attention to the tank and began my morning checks. “I figure I’ve got a year to decide. I can try and run down a few loose ends and see what’s got the best odds of actually being something. You know, instead of nothing. It’s gonna be sweet as fuck to have access to an actual lab like this. Not that I haven’t been doing good work, but, you know, it’s like you always can do better, right? And having my own space will be good—no freshmen trying to clear my experiments away so they can do their dissections. Man, I lost an entire batch of eggs that way. And—are you listening, Nate?”
I made a noncommittal noise that I hoped he would interpret to mean “yes.” While he had been speaking, I had managed to get a fair amount done: I removed the ring scanner I was developing from the shelf and took Pythagoras out of his tank. I ran it over each of his eight arms, getting the readings I needed. Pythagoras looked pleased with the process—I was unable to be sure, of course, but it appeared that I had improved the comfort level to a point where these scans were among the high points of his and Elly’s day.
I may not have been paying the highest level of attention to Oliver while I did so.
“You’re not. That’s fine. I know, I can come on a little strong.”
I was willing to agree with that. And I did. “Yes.” I replaced Pythagoras and got Elly out of the tank, making sure to show her to Sludge before beginning her scans.
“Oh, come on, Nate! You gotta put the past behind you! You can’t just judge me on when we were kids! I was a kid then!”
I put Elly down on the counter. “That is a tautology, no?”
“You know what I mean.”
I gave a half-smile. “I do. Let us work together, as colleagues. Our shared past need not concern us.”
“Yeah,” he said. “As colleagues.” He looked a bit disappointed, for no apparent reason since I had just acceded to his request. “I’ll—I’m going to go take care of some things before orientation this afternoon.”
I waved him off, already a little concerned about what Elly would have been up to while my back was turned. To my relief, she was comfortably cuddled up to the prototype scanner. “Have a good orientation. I, Nate the Great, will see you once you are properly oriented.”
He turned away from me and muttered under his breath. “No chance of that happening.” I thought of asking what he meant, but then he turned back. He grinned broadly, and I observed for the first time that he had clearly had some orthodonture done in the years we had spent apart. “See you later, Nate the Great.”
***
After that first meeting, having Oliver around the lab turned into something of a non-event. Certainly he hung around a bit, but he was busy trying to get three separate experiments set up in hopes that one would give him the basis he needed for a dissertation, and I was busy trying to get my prototype imaging device into good working order. He was chatty about his projects, but no more so than most first-year students are. As a matter of fact, the other first-years were probably greater pests than Oliver. Calvin appeared to have no idea what sort of research he wanted to pursue, and used the copious free time left by his lack of experiments on what appeared to be a quest to get romantically rejected by everyone in the lab. Suzie, while well-intentioned, was also clinically incapable of going more than an hour without causing a noisy accident at her benches, which not infrequently caused other people to mess up their experiments in surprise. And Fred was just kind of dumb. All told, it seemed like grown-up Oliver was an inoffensive colleague.
For some reason, Annie seemed disappointed to hear this when I spoke to her on the first Thursday after her trial. Apparently her noble profession fails to provide sufficient stimulation when compared to the tense atmosphere she expected to exist between me and Oliver.
“C’mon, Nate! Not even a little drama?”
“Sorry to disappoint, but he is a perfectly tolerable adult human being, albeit one who could use a little more focus in his research.” I, Nate the Great, try to avoid drama. But because it was becoming clear that I would not get out of this conversation without providing some, I elected to stall for time to think of some. “That said . . . ”
“Yes, Nate.” I could hear Annie grinning over the phone. “Provide some sordid entertainment to bring joy into my gloomy life!”
I stalled some more. “Well, it’s not exactly sordid—”
“Just spit it out, Nate.”
Got it. “We have a new octopus who is struggling to fit in with his companions.”
The mixture of disappointment and interest in Annie’s pause was palpable. After several seconds, she spoke again. “Nate.”
“Yes?”
“Octopuses are not drama. Notwithstanding my objection to your utter failure to provide the drama I so desperately crave, I demand pictures. Does it have a name?”
“I let Oliver name him. He went with Alexander.”
“He named an octopus after you? That’s so sweet!”
I blinked. I tried my best to do it audibly. “Annie. I understand you have a busy work schedule, but have you forgotten that my name is Nathaniel?”
She groaned. “Not when we were kids. Your name was ‘the Great.’ You know, like Alexander? The world-conqueror?”
I paused to not consider Annie’s theory. When she did not interrupt again, I spoke. “I think he may just like the name.”
She scoffed. “Right, and Alexandria is just a city in Egypt. Now come on, pictures of the guy.” I scrolled through my phone for a picture, and I sent the first one I came across: of Oliver helping fit the scanner over one of Alexander’s arms.
Annie nearly squealed. “Ooh, cute! Both of them!”
“I suppose so,” I said. “I am glad that the scanner is also making Alexander happy. I was worried that I had designed it for the idiosyncratic tastes of Pythagoras and Elly.”
“From where I’m sitting, it looks like it’s also making Oliver pretty happy. Or maybe that’s just because he’s finally getting to hang with you again?” I was pretty sure I could hear Annie batting her eyelids at me.
“Let us assume it is the scanner and move on,” I responded flatly. “Do you have any exciting new cases in the works?”
I listened attentively while Annie described several new lawsuits against Texas and Florida, before I went into the lab.
***
When I got there, the first thing I did was convey Annie’s greetings to Oliver. The second thing I did was notice that Oliver was shaking and visibly upset, and that he, Suzie and Fred were standing in a circle around the shelves rather than doing any work. The third thing I did was see that my scanner was smashed on the floor, with just a box of shrimp sitting on the shelf where it used to be.
Suzie, the first to speak, was dripping with sweat. “I swear, it was like that when I got in!” She was gesticulating so wildly that I became concerned for her shoulder ligaments.
“Calm down,” I said. “This is a setback, but I have extensive notes and can rebuild it.” It would take a long time and make me very unhappy, but I, Nate the Great, have learned throughout the years that people become less calm when you tell them you are upset. “Do you know what happened?”
Oliver spoke next. “No idea. I just got here, and Fred was yelling at Suzie.”
“I wasn’t yelling!” Fred yelled. “All I was saying was that this was gonna be a fucking disaster, and you were gonna be so fucking mad, and I have no fucking idea how this happened!” He took a breath. “I was here all night, and I didn’t notice anyone else, but I had my buds in and I didn’t see when Suzie came in until she started screaming.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Oliver, could you please go and check the lab records to see who scanned into the lab overnight?”
“Sure thing, boss!” Oliver dashed into the other room to check the security computer. I perceived that Suzie was still crying, so based on my suspicion that she would provide better evidence at a later time, I turned to Fred to ask a question.
“You usually do not work with earphones, do you?”
He shook his head and spoke again, quietly now. “Naw. I was only trying to block out all the loud noises in the lab.” He shook his head again, but differently, not conveying a negative but trying to shake off some lingering drowsiness. “All night, there was this loud clanging, like the door opening and closing. I wound up propping it open to stop the noise, but the noises kept going, and I couldn’t even keep track of which arm I was observing, so I fired up some lofi beats to watch cuttlefish to and went back to my observations until I heard Suzie.”
I understood. “I understand,” I said.
I thought carefully about my next question, but I was interrupted by Oliver skidding back in. “Just checked the logs, your Greatness.” Fred looked confused, and Suzie looked as if she was starting to laugh under her tears. Oliver waved one hand, and continued. “Confirmed that no one but Fred scanned in overnight.
“Unfortunately,” I said, “that is not information.” Now all three of them looked confused, so I explained further. “The logs are not useful under the circumstances. Consider, for instance, whether you saw Suzie swipe in at any point? Or yourself? Or me?”
Oliver looked abashed. “Suzie swiped in at about 8:00 p.m., but I don’t see you or me. But how did you know?”
I allowed myself a small smile of pride in my still-sharp detective skills. “You may thank Fred for that. In an attempt to stop intrusive noises from interfering with his work, he has had the door propped open for the last hours. You presumably walked in through that open door yourself. Moreover, he has been listening to music that would have prevented him from hearing anyone in the lab. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing who entered crime scene during the relevant period.” I frowned appropriately for the solemnness of my conclusion, and I walked over to the door. “Fred, you said the noises were ‘clanging.’ Did they sound like this?” I slammed the door, which made a dull thud.
“Come to think of it, no.” Fred looked awed. “That was kind of a ‘Thunk!” What I heard was more like ‘Clang!’” He scowled. “No, that’s not it. It was a ‘Bang!” Another dark look appeared on his face. “No, not that either. Maybe it was a—”
I cut him off. “Perhaps we can attempt to recreate the noise to figure out what was happening last night.” I picked up the shattered remains of my scanner and dropped it on the ground, where it made a high-pitched “clink.” “Did it sound like that?”
Fred shook his head. “No, it was more—I wanna say solid?”
Oliver spoke up. “Could it have been Suzie knocking something over?”
Fred and I spoke over each other, but our responses were identical. “No.”
I paused, and Fred went on. “Sounded different, more intentional. Besides, I don’t think she’s ever stuck around after making one of her messes.” Perhaps Fred was more observant regarding human behavior than cephalopod behavior, I remarked silently.
“That is correct.” I drummed my fingers on the lab bench, noting the distinct non-metallic character of the noise I was making. “Moreover, these noises were repeated throughout the night, and of a single timbre. That is not what one would expect from a single accident.”
Suzie had stopped crying by this point, and she took a deep breath before speaking for herself. “I did have an accident last night—nothing major, but I spilled about 100 gallons of water all over myself. I’m sorry, but I just mopped it up and left. I didn’t come back until about 9:00 this morning, when I saw the scanner smashed on the ground.” She gulped for air, and spoke again, beginning to waver. “I’m so sorry. I should have been here, I should have seen what was happening, and now both our projects are behind schedule, and there’s nothing I can do!”
She looked like she was about to cry again, so I tried to reassure her. “There, there,” I said. “I am certain that you could not have known that this would happen. How far behind does this latest accident put your project?”
This did not have the effect for which I had been hoping. Suzie again burst into tears. I stood still in hopes that it would end.
It did not. Fortunately, Oliver was there. He walked over to her and rubbed small circles on her back. “Hey. Hey. It’s gonna be fine, okay?” She hiccupped, and he used his other hand to turn her head gently. “Look, Nate’s not mad at you. And you’re not going to fail just because you missed one night of data. You’re doing fine, you’re dry, and no one is angry at you.”
He was looking at me as he said those last words, and I successfully picked up on the prompt. “That is right,” I said in my most soothing voice, “I am not upset with you. I am upset about my scanner—” Oliver’s eyes narrowed and he removed his hand from her back to make a throat-cutting gesture in my direction “—but I do not blame you for its destruction.” Oliver’s expression softened, and he gave me a barely perceptible nod. Suzie’s crying ceased.
I took advantage of the new silence to continue my questions. “At any rate, you were not here overnight, is that correct?” Suzie nodded. “So you could not have seen what happened.” She nodded again, and supplemented her response with a whispered “Uh-huh.”
I turned to Fred. “And you were preoccupied, so you likewise could not have seen what happened?”
He smiled ruefully. “Yeah, sorry about that, but with the volume of music I was playing, I wouldn’t have known if someone was walking right behind me.”
I grimaced, but understandingly. “It is not a problem. Do either of you recall whether Calvin was here last night?” I received nothing but blank stares in response, so I clarified. “I do not suspect him of sabotage. I only hope that there may have been a third potential witness.” Their shoulders unclenched slightly, but neither one responded.
At this point, Oliver spoke up. “I can call him. I think you two can go home for the day?” He presented that last bit as a question to me, so I nodded politely. “We can call you if we need any further information, thank you.”
Suzie and Fred left the lab. I looked at Oliver, waiting for him to call Calvin. He did not do so. Instead, he walked over to me—startlingly close—and he looked into my eyes as if he expected to see something that he was not finding.
I was unsure how long this lasted, but I was startled out of my reverie by his left hand touching my chin. He turned my face to look directly into his. “Hey,” he said. “You holding up okay?” He began to rub my back with his right hand, using the same small circles he had applied to Suzie. It was at this moment, as I began to unclench my shoulders, that I realized the level of tension I had been holding through the conversation so far. I began to breathe normally, only now becoming aware that I had been taking shallow gulps of air as I spoke with my fellow researchers. Oliver’s eyes were still staring into mine, waiting for a response.
“Thank you,” I said. “I needed that.”
This did not seem to satisfy Oliver. He removed his left hand from my face, and my breath quickened again, before he brought it around my back to join his right, drawing me into a warm, tall hug. I felt my body relax into his broad chest and I felt calmer at once. Calm enough to note that Oliver smelled nice, like sunscreen mixed with the salt water from the octopus tanks. Calm enough to appreciate that smell and his other qualities perhaps more than I should have been—and then differently panicked when I realized that if we continued in this position he would be able to detect my appreciativeness. I pushed him away in what I hoped felt like a gentle and appreciative, rather than alarmed, manner, and took a quick peek downward to ensure that I had not made my appreciation visible. I did not think I had done so, but Oliver remained focused on my face, abating the danger somewhat.
I attempted an appropriately calm expression. “Are you going to call Calvin?”
He narrowed his eyes as if to assess the effectiveness of his intervention, and I prayed despite his atheism that he would not maintain the narrow, face-based scope of that assessment. My prayers were either answered or unnecessary, and was sufficiently satisfied with what he found in my face to remove his phone from his pocket. “Yeah, I’ll put him on speaker.” He took his gaze away from me for what felt like the first time in ages, and called Calvin from his recent contacts.
Calvin answered sleepily on the fifth ring. “Hey, sweetie.” I looked sharply at Oliver, who made a dismissive waving gesture that could have indicated any number of things. As Oliver asked Calvin to come into the lab and discuss a sensitive situation, I attempted to discern whether he had meant something more like “What can you do, he says that to everyone?” or “He thinks our single night of glorious passion meant more to me than it did.” Or perhaps even “We are moving in together and adopting a yorkie, but that is not important right now.”
I tuned back into the conversation with Calvin when I heard my name. “—Nate’s here too, you should probably come in pretty quick.”
I cannot confirm, but I believe I could hear Calvin raise an eyebrow over the phone. “Oh, both of you? Very exciting.” Oliver gave the same wave he had given earlier, and I was more than professionally reassured to rule out the third definition.
I cleared my throat to indicate my presence, because my prior musings had prevented me from hearing whether Oliver had disclosed that he was on speaker. “It is rather serious, Calvin. How soon can you be here?”
He groaned louchely. “I’d been planning to curl upon the couch and work on my Biology exams, but I can come in if you really need me.”
I rubbed my forehead. “We do, there has been—”
That was all that I got out before Oliver cut in with startling force. “Just come in. This is more important than whatever it is you were going to do with your biology on your couch.” He practically spit the last word, and I revised my interpretation of the wave towards something more like the second definition. “Can you be here in half an hour?”
Calvin audibly wilted. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
Oliver hung up without saying goodbye and turned back to me. “You good? Looks like your corticosterone levels are elevated again. Do you need another hug?”
I backed away. “No, I am fine. And as I am a human, not an octopus, my stress levels are more directly regulated by cortisol, not corticosterone.” I shook my head. “While we wait for Calvin, we should probably split up and search for the clang that Fred heard.” He muttered something I could not hear under his breath, but agreed.
***
By the time Calvin arrived, we were no closer to figuring out what Fred had heard the night before. Oliver had taken to the project like his athletic self: sitting, leaning and in some instances leaping on a variety of lab benches and equipment. This resulted in a variety of enticing views, particularly as I noted the tightness of his shirt pulling up over the small of his back in some more adventurous poses, but in no sounds more metallic than a dull thud.
Experimentalist that I am, I had focused more on pounding things together—a phrase that I thankfully did not use in my head at the time, given my somewhat distracted state. But the majority of the furniture did not clang even when smacked with the janglier bits of equipment, and none of the clangier collisions I created were the result of events that would have been repeated throughout the night without intervention.
All in all, it was a relief when Calvin arrived, albeit significantly later than he had promised to. My relief was somewhat lessened when Oliver raced over, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him over to where I was standing. Once Calvin regained his footing from the dragging, Oliver commenced his interrogation. “Where were you last night?”
Calvin flinched. “I’d rather not say,” he said, sounding resentful and looking at the floor. “I don’t know what business of yours it is what I do in my free time.”
Oliver remained insistent. He had yet, I noted, to let go of Calvin’s arm. “Were you here? Did you do this?”
Curiously, Calvin appeared to relax at this question. His defensive expressions softened and slowly replaced themselves with a look of pure confusion, which remained there in silence for several seconds. When he next spoke, it was without the defensive tone and with what sounded like genuine concern. “What’s wrong? What did happen?”
Oliver did not appear to take account of Calvin’s changed tone. He pointed angrily at the bench where the remains of my prototype sat. “Someone smashed up Nate’s scanner, that’s what happened. And I’m really hoping for your sake it wasn’t you, or whoever you brought back here!”
Oliver continued to breathe heavily, but did not say anything more. I felt it incumbent upon me to ease the situation. “We do not have a reason to suspect you.” Calvin did not appear reassured, but I pressed on. “In fact, we were mostly hopeful that you could help us figure out what did happen. Were you here at any point overnight? Did you see anything?”
He cast a wary glance at Oliver, then turned back to me. He sighed. “Look,” he said. “This isn’t easy. But I really don’t want to say what I was doing last night. I swear, I wasn’t here. I wasn’t doing anything, I don’t know anything about this and I’m really sorry about your tentacle machine but I don’t have any information for you. Can I just go home and go back to bed?”
I looked to Oliver, who looked back at me to gauge my response before rubbing his temples and turning to Calvin again. “Just one more question. Can you think of anything in the lab that goes ‘clang’?”
He could not.
***
Several hours later, we were tired, hungry, and without leads. Oliver had largely run out of things to sit on and I had largely run out of things to smack together, which meant that we had collectively run out of things to examine for leads. Oliver had apparently also reached this conclusion, because he left his latest perch (another “thud”) and walked over to me (tapping, lighter than expected from a man his height). He tapped me on the shoulder, an unnecessary act given he already had my attention. “Hey, I think we’re both losing steam. Should we get some pancakes and switch over to the cerebral portion of the case?”
I grimaced. “Normally one moves to thinking after one has already gathered evidence.” His hand, which had not left my shoulder, shook me gently. “But I suppose we will gather clues better as well if we are not distracted by hunger. Yes, let us get some pancakes.”
He grinned. “You always were a soft touch for pancakes. C’mon, I’m buying.” He slid his hand around to my other shoulder, with his arm behind my neck, and ushered me out of the lab. As tired as I was, it felt nice to have his arm around me. It was good, I decided, to have him with me. I leaned comfortably back as we walked and allowed him to rub my shoulder as we walked to the diner.
***
The Three Star Diner was near the docks, so the owner always kept the air conditioner on strong in an attempt to blow away the salty, fishy smell in the air. The proprietor waved us in—there was not a large crowd in the late afternoon—and Oliver led me to a large booth near the window with a view of the ocean. We sat in silence for a moment, as Oliver returned to his investigation of my expression (with which I attempted to convey calmness, determination and certainty).
Our waiter arrived with water, and I asked for two orders of pancakes and three iced coffees. The waiter nodded, then turned to Oliver for his order (pancakes and corned beef hash, with coffee). Our drinks arrived and we sat in what I hoped was companionable silence. I looked at the water. Oliver, for whatever reason, continued looking at me.
I supposed he may have been looking to me for leadership, and so I responded appropriately. “Do not worry, Oliver. We will figure out what happened, and I can recreate my scanner without too much time loss.”
Oliver sighed. “That’s not what I’m worrying about. But thanks.”
I frowned and started a separate mental case file. “What am I doing to worry you, then? I would prefer to stop.”
He looked confused, then laughed. “Nothing. There’s nothing you’re doing I want you to stop.” He turned and looked at the ocean until our food arrived.
Midway into my first stack of pancakes, I cursed. “Shit,” I said. “Oliver. We need to go back to the lab.”
Oliver looked up from his hash drenched in ketchup and cholula. He swallowed his mouthful and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Nate, I know you’re worried, but the case can wait. Right now you need food and caffeine.”
I put my hand on top of his and gently removed it. “Oliver, that is why we must return to the lab. We are not the only ones who need food; in the midst of our investigation, we neglected to feed Pythagoras, Elly and Alexander.”
It was now Oliver’s turn to curse. “Fuck, you’re right.” He took his hand out from under mine and signaled for our waiter. “Can we get this to go?” The waiter nodded his assent and returned with boxes and to-go cups. We packed our remaining pancakes, I repackaged the half iced coffee I had left, and we walked—somewhat faster than we had come—back to the lab.
***
We scanned into the lab, and Oliver went to get the 50-pound box of frozen shrimp we had left thawing the previous night. The shelf, which had been depressed by the weight of the box, returned to its original position with a sound. A loud, metallic sound.
“Oliver?” I said.
He had not noticed. “I’m coming, just give me a second. This box is heavy, and we’re not all enormous hunks.”
I smiled softly. “Oliver, while that is flattering, you have missed the point. Can you return the box to the shelf, and then remove it again?”
He looked as if he was about to complain, but he returned to the shelf and did so, with the same resulting noise. “Why am I doing this? Is this some ‘put on the jacket, take off the jacket’ bullshit where you train me to be a marine biologist through rote labor? Because that’s not really the kind of obedience kink I’m into.”
I filed that revelation away for my fantasy files, but did not respond aloud. “Oliver. Do it again, and this time, listen to the sound.”
He put the box back on the shelf with a grunt and shrugged—an action which made his triceps bulge pleasingly, I admit. “I didn’t hear anything.”
I explained again “Not when you put it down. The sound you hear when you take it off, however…” I trailed off, distracted by the stretches he had started doing in preparation for another lift.
As it turned out, however, I did not need to say anything more. He lifted the box, and his eyes went wide. “Nate,” he said. “Clang.”
“Precisely,” I responded. “We had been assuming the sound was the interaction of two objects, and ignored this possibility. Can you do it again so I can record it and see whether it matches Fred’s recollection?”
He groaned. “Can’t you do it this time? I know I’m fun to watch, but I think I deserve a chance to watch you”—I felt my cheeks begin to heat up, and I willed them to cool off before Oliver noticed—"and I’m getting really tired. Besides, my phone has a better mic.”
I assented, and I positioned myself by the shelf. He got out his phone and positioned himself to shoot a video. I raised my left eyebrow. “I thought you intended to record the sound for Fred, not film me.”
Oliver shamelessly licked his lips. “Until the union gets us some actual paid leave, this job has to come with some perks, right? Just lift the box like a good boy.” I blushed and turned toward the shelf, trying to avoid any more obvious physical reactions that might be captured in Oliver’s unnecessary visual evidence. As I bent over to grab the box, I heard a sharp whistle from behind me. “Oh yeah, work it for me!”
I turned back slightly with my upper body, keeping my front still carefully facing away from the camera lens. “Oliver, the point is to record the sound. Your catcalls, while not entirely unwelcome,”—at this, he clenched his fist and gave a slight pump that I felt I was not intended to notice—“will interfere with the relevant portion of the recording.”
He sighed, but agreed. “Fine, fine. I’ll keep it quiet.”
I thanked him, he pointed the camera at me again, and I lifted the box. He captured the clanging sound, sent it to Fred, and asked the all-important question to which I did not yet have an answer: “So, where does that leave us? If that was what Fred was hearing, who was lifting the shrimp?”
I did not know. So l leaned back against the box to think, and we heard the clang again. I looked sharply at Oliver. “Oliver,” I said. “Did you hear that?”
He peered at me, confused. “Yeah, it’s the sound we’ve just been talking about. Are you okay?”
He had once again missed the point. “Correct, it is the same sound. But that time, I did not lift the box, I only leaned against it. This expands the range of possibilities for how it could have been produced to bother Fred during the night.”
Oliver’s phone buzzed with a message from Fred confirming that we had identified the clang he had heard. Oliver told me so, perhaps unnecessarily walking up to the shelf against which I leaned to wrap his arm around my shoulder and show me the message. “So, detective, what are you thinking? What new ‘range of possibilities’”—he rubbed my shoulder—“has occurred to you?”
I sighed, and allowed myself to lean back into his arm, my upper back resting comfortably on his chest. “I am not yet sure. We should move onto the next phase of our investigation?”
He made no move to push me away. “And the next phase is?”
“We should think this over at the bar.”
***
Ye Olde Squidde & Whalle is not a particularly popular bar among the undergraduate population, which made it an excellent refuge for grad students like me and Oliver. It was near the end of happy hour by the time we arrived, so we took a seat at the bar and tried to flag down the bartender before the drinks jumped up to their regular prices. I ordered my usual—a sort of maple bourbon slushee called The Frozen Logger—and Oliver got a spicy mezcal drink called The Ship’s Stoker.
We toasted, and started to discuss the case. Could the shelf have been tilting, so that the shrimp box was shifting and knocking the scanner down? No, then the sound would have continued all day and been easily identifiable. Could someone have been trying fruitlessly to shift the shrimp box? But who would it have been, then? In short, we got nowhere, and Oliver appeared as frustrated as I felt. Finally, he changed the topic—albeit to one that made me no less uncomfortable. “So, Nate, how is it possible that you’re even hotter now than you were in high school? You were kind of a twink back then, but now you’re, like built.”
I gave myself a slight brain freeze as I took a longer-than-usual pull on the straw in my drink. “Oliver, this is hardly relevant to the case. But I worked as a lab assistant throughout undergrad, and I suppose I built up some muscle mass doing all of that manual labor.”
He looked me up and down in a way that made me feel positively naked, and whistled appreciatively. “Well, whatever it is, it worked.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And in case there was any doubt, you are very attractive yourself.” I have never been the best at flirting, but I hoped that my point got across to him.
Perhaps fortunately, he did not have a chance to put the ball back in my court, as our conversation was interrupted by a noisy mob of med students celebrating something or other. They took a table near us, and ordered the bar’s signature group cocktail—some scaled-up jaeger-bomb monstrosity. We both turned to watch as the waiter brought out an aquarium full of some well liquor and mixers, and prepared to drop in a metal squid filled with off-brand anise liqueur. The med students were cheering as he did so, but not too loudly for Oliver and me to look at each other as we heard the squid make a loud, metallic clang on the bottom of the tank.
“Oliver,” I said, before he could raise the point that had clearly occurred to both of us, “I think I have solved our mystery. We should go back to the lab to check, but we need to make a stop on the way.”
He nodded, and scrunched up his eyes. “What do we need to do before we go back?”
How much he had to learn. “We are going to be performing a stakeout. And it is not a stakeout without donuts and coffee.”
***
After picking up a dozen donuts, we returned to the lab. We left it dark, and we lay on the floor with a clear view of the shelf. Oliver snuggled into my side, and I let him. We munched on maple crullers and waited for the culprit to reappear, not talking for fear that we might drive him away. It grew dark outside, and several times I needed to shake Oliver awake slightly to avoid his snoring letting anyone know we were here.
After a few hours of snuggles and donuts in the darkness, our patience was rewarded, and we heard the same clanging sound that had bothered Fred. I gestured to Oliver to move to one side of the shelf, while I moved to turn on the lab light. I whispered a countdown, and Oliver was appropriately positioned so that when the lights flared on, he immediately placed his hands around Alexander, who had been sneaking out of his tank in search of a midnight snack. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “Caught you red-handed! Or, you know, red-tentacled.”
I walked back over to the shelf, and looked Alexander in the eyes. He managed to look at least slightly guilty, but with an edge of defiance that suggested we would not be able to solve this problem on the octopus side. “Oliver,” I said, “can you return this reprobate to his tank? I am going to fix this problem the only way I know how. With a sign.”
Oliver walked back into the other room, frequently adjusting his grip to keep Alexander from squirming away. I went over to the lab computers, where I printed out several pages reading “Do Not Thaw Food On Shelves With Breakable Objects.” Thinking again, I scrapped those papers and added a second line, with a picture of Alexander and an explanation: “He does not respect personal property.”
Happy with the results of my endeavor, I posted a copy on each lab shelf. As I taped up the final sign, I felt myself embraced from behind, somewhat more forcefully than I had been expecting. As I leaned back into his embrace, grinding into his warmth, Oliver whispered in my ear “You know, I’ve always had a thing for detectives. Has anyone ever told you you’re exceptionally cute when you’ve solved a case?” And, turning my head back to face him, he kissed me. Deeply.
I kissed him back. As I regretfully broke off our entanglement for some air, I reminded him of where we were. “This is lovely, but we probably ought not be doing this type of thing in the lab.”
He nodded his head. “Guess we need to go to your place, then, because I’m sure as fuck not done.”
I had no counterargument, so I led him to my apartment.
***
When I woke up the following morning, Oliver was nowhere to be found. I did the only thing I could think of: I texted Annie. The exchange was somewhat more excited than I anticipated.
Me: Annie, I have a situation I may need your help with.
Annie: WTF you never text
Me: Yes, but this is an emergency.
Annie: what’s up?
Me: It is about Oliver.
Annie: OMG did you 2 finally fuck? how was he?
Annie: I bet he has a real oral fixation, right?
Annie: Nate? You there?
It took me several minutes to reply.
Me: Annie, how did you know that?
Annie: nate he’s been lusting after you since we were like prepubescent
Me: I suppose that is true.
Annie: and you’re like super-hot now
Annie: obviously he wasn’t going to let you get away
Me: So, what do I do now?
Annie: idk you guys could probably do some onlyfans
Me: That is not what I meant. I am concerned that I have taken advantage of my position.
Annie did not reply for some time. I showered, paying somewhat more attention to my body than usual as I remembered last night’s events, and I began my walk to the lab. It was still a weekday, after all, and my octopuses would be hungry—particularly Alexander, who had been so cruelly denied an extra meal. As I was about halfway there, my phone vibrated twice in quick succession.
Annie: I don’t think he’s going to think you took advantage of him
Annie: if anything he’s going to be worried about the other way around
I had my doubts, but I hastened my pace to the lab in any event, hoping to reassure Oliver that nothing of the sort had happened. But when I showed up, Oliver was not there. Apparently, however, the other researchers could tell what had happened. As I gave Pythagoras his morning meal of delicious crustaceans, I heard a singsong voice from behind me. “Someone’s in a good mood. Has all of Oliver’s work finally paid off?”
I decided, despite my distinct lack of skill in the field, to play dumb. “I do not know what you are talking about,” I said.
“Come on,” Calvin said. “He’s been aiming for you since he got here. I always thought it was kind of pathetic, like what kind of 24 year-old has that level of schoolboy crush? But it seemed pretty serious, what with him begging me to help make you jealous. Is that what worked?” Another mystery solved, I supposed. “So, he finally got in those tight pants of yours?”
I hastily finished dumping shrimp in Pythagoras’s tank and moved on to Elly, who had started eagerly pawing—arming, I guess—at her lid. I did not think my pants were particularly tight, but I rarely see them from the outside. “I wish you would not make such a big deal of this.”
“Nah, it’s nothing. I’m just happy for Oliver. And you, of course.” He left, smiling.
And, in all honesty, I did have an extra spring in my step as I did my tasks that day. Even Alexander seemed to notice something different. There was a certain smugness in his reactions to my data-gathering, and he watched attentively—maybe even shamefully—as I began the work to rebuild my scanner.
***
Oliver, however, did not show up all day. Remembering Annie’s text, I became concerned that he was avoiding me out of guilt. In the absence of knowledge, I did the only thing I knew how to do: I investigated.
“Calvin,” I shouted across the lab. “Have you seen Oliver?”
“No, not since yesterday,” he shouted back. My investigation had hit a dead end.
I called Oliver’s number. He did not pick up. I texted him. He did not reply. I decided I would go to his apartment and look for him, but I did not know where exactly he lived. Fortunately, Calvin was not so unobservant as I was inclined to believe. As I put my phone away, he walked across the lab and volunteered Oliver’s address, adding “you guys are hopeless, you know that?”
I acknowledged that we were, in fact, hopeless, and made my way out of the lab to check on Oliver.
***
I got to Oliver’s apartment and rang the doorbell. He yelled from a couple rooms away. “If it’s Nate, go away, I don’t need to embarrass myself more.”
I adopted a clever ruse to gain entry. “Hello,” I said. “This is not Nate.”
Oliver opened the door. “That’s not very convincing,” he said. “But come on in anyway. Did you bring my phone?” He eyed my pockets, and let out a sigh of disappointment when they did not betray the presence of an extra phone. “Guess not.”
“I am sorry,” I said. “I did not realize you had left it. But what is wrong?”
He waved me in, and indicated that I should sit on his couch. “Look,” he began.
I took the invitation, and gave him an up-and-down look of the type he had been applying to my body yesterday. “I am looking.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. This is hard, okay? I know that I’ve always been chasing after you, and I’ve built you up into this sort of white whale—”
“Oliver,” I interrupted, but he kept going.
“And I know you’ve probably got all kinds of exciting things going on, and this probably meant way the hell more to me than it did to you—”
“Oliver—”
“But I just don’t know that I can stick around here, you’re gonna be too distracting. I got what I wanted and now I can leave forever, I’ll always want this and even getting it hasn’t changed anything, I’m always going to want you, and it’s not fair to force—”
This last interruption was my doing. Having failed to interrupt him with words, I did the only thing I could think of. I kissed him. And, finally, once I took my mouth off of his, he shut up long enough to let me respond. “Oliver, I said. “You are forcing nothing. I want this as well. I want you. I do not want you to leave, I do not want whatever ‘exciting things’ it is you presume I have ‘going on.’ I want you to stay with me, and I want to continue being with you. You cannot name an octopus after me and then leave me alone.”
He was silent for a moment, as he processed my unwonted expression of earnest emotion. “You realized I named him after you, huh?”
“Annie realized,” I admitted. “I did not believe her until last night.”
“I’ll have to thank her,” he said, and began to unpack what I belatedly realized had been a suitcase in case he did need to “go away forever.” “And so, Mr. The Great—”
“Call me ‘Nate,’ please. Mr. The Great was my father.”
He laughed. “What do you want to do now?”
I looked him up and down again, and he shuddered gratifyingly. “Right now, Oliver? I want a reprise of last night.”
And I got what I wanted. I suspect Oliver did, as well.
***
When I woke the next morning, Oliver was not in his bed, but I could hear him in his small kitchen. I wandered in, not bothering to put on my briefs. He gave me an appreciative look and gestured to a mug of coffee on the table. I picked it up, drinking deeply, and he turned back to the stove, where he had a griddle going with a small batch of pancakes. I hugged him from behind and looked over his shoulder. “I do not mean to criticize,” I said, “but that does not appear to be enough pancakes for both of us.”
He turned back, taking his eyes off the griddle briefly, and he kissed me on the nose. “Actually,” he said, “these are just for you. In all honesty, I prefer waffles.” He ruefully gestured to a waffle iron already full with batter.
I harrumphed, and I busied myself assembling condiments for my wayward boyfriend. Oliver may no longer be a pest, but his taste could use some work. I, Nate the Great, have time to perform that work.