He was at my doorstep at six o'clock on the dot. Gotta hand it to him, the guy was like clockwork.

He had this pristine look about him, like he was fresh out of the shower. He also smelled nice—like that Body Shop body wash, which was almost ten bucks a bottle. Weren't you supposed to shower after you've jogged? His jogging getup looked good on him, too. The black Nike Swoosh shorts and a navy-blue Ralph Lauren polo. He was all that and a bag of chips in this getup, and this was maybe the first time I really looked at him. Did he clean up for me? I mean, he looked flawless. But maybe that was what the price tag on those clothes was supposed to do. His parents were rich, if you haven't figured it out already. Mine—nuh! All my clothes were off-brand. And now, looking at him, I wished I'd also taken a shower.

“Ready?” he asked, giving me a once-over, probably to evaluate the appropriateness of my clothes, for jogging that is. Was there really a dress code for jogging? He seemed pleased anyway, so I guess he didn't think I looked too terrible. I did my best, given that I'm not really a jogger.

“Yeah,” I breathed.

“Come on then, let's bounce,” he said and, without missing a beat, headed toward his car. He wasn't wasting any time here. He was all business.

I followed him, immediately noticing how out of place his red BMW 325i Sport edition looked in my driveway. If I wasn't feeling self-conscious already, now I was. But kudos to him, he graciously pretended as if nothing was amiss, as if our less-than-manicured lawn didn't bother him, or the cracks in the driveway that you could stick your finger in, or my uncle's run-down van parked permanently at the curb that was missing all four of its wheels now. Wes actually tried to pretend he didn't see any of it . . . And I appreciated it.

“Come on, get in,” he said, shooting me a glance.

I did, trying to be as gentle with the door as possible. I really didn't want to break anything.

We remained silent during the ride, mostly. He did tell me, though, that I could call him Wes when I tried calling him Weston.

“Just call me Wes,” he said. “All my friends call me Wes.”

“Well, all my friends call me Cling. But you can't call me that,” I blurted out, instantly regretting it. I immediately felt myself getting hot in the cheeks.

He snort-laughed. Then he at least had the decency to pretend to feel guilty about it.

“Cling, really?”

“Pup, Tag, Cling,” I said with an eyeroll. “It's mostly Nia. She calls me that when she's annoyed with me. Forget I mentioned it. Torrence is fine, thank you.”

He snickered, but it wasn't mean-spirited. Then he said, “I like Torrence. It suits you.” He looked at me. “I wasn't going to call you Cling, just so you know. Not unless you're actually a barnacle.”

“I promise I’m not,” I said. Even though sometimes I'm afraid I could be.

When we were actually on the trail, jogging, with Wes jogging backwards half the time so that he could keep his eye on me (I was lagging a little bit behind), it turned out jogging wasn't half as bad as I imagined.

I was out of breath, sure. And my insides hurt. But he kept a slow pace—for my sake—and I appreciated it. Oddly, he was being a perfect gentleman, and I liked that (even though I didn't expect him to be that way).

Twenty minutes in, when I've listened to enough football talk to get my head spinning (which was all Wes was yapping about this whole time), I asked, “So, are we actually going to discuss the assignment?”

He looked a little bummed out. I think he'd much rather continue the football chatter. He found a grateful audience in me, just because I didn't have the heart to shush him. And because I was a sucker for his pink lips.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s,” he said. “What was the assignment again?”

“Conducting an ecological survey,” I said. Did he really not remember? “Objective: Investigate the biodiversity of a woodland area of our choice and analyze the interaction between biotic and abiotic factors.”

He wrinkled his nose, the same way I do when I don't like the sound of something. Guess we did have something in common after all.

“You memorized it or something?” he asked.

I scoffed. “What's to memorize? The assignment was pretty clear.”

He made a noise as if to indicate it wasn't entirely true. I guess he felt the same way about natural sciences as I did about football.

“We just need to pick an area for analysis, that's it. I'll take the notes, you don't have to worry about it,” I said.

He looked around briefly and then pointed his finger arbitrarily, without giving it much thought. If I were asked to pick a football player at a game, I guess I would have done the same thing.

“Right there looks fine, wouldn't you say?” he asked.

I refrained from eye-rolling. The guy was utterly clueless. But he was cute, so I decided not to make it any harder than it needed to be.

“Yes! But if you were to move your finger that way—” I moved his finger. “—it'd be much better.” I held on to his finger for just a sec before he turned his head to look at me. “There's a fresh water reservoir about two miles west, at the old cirque near the mountain’s peak. I thought amphibians would be much more appealing to observe than your usual mammals, birds, and reptiles.”

He looked a little confused. “How did you know there was a freshwater reservoir up in the mountains? I thought you said you've never been here before.”

“There are maps, hello! Ever heard of satellite imagery? Microsoft Encarta 99, the big update. The previous version’s good, but the new one's better.”

He sort of nodded vaguely. “Yeah . . . I think I have it on my PC. I don't think I've ever used it.”

My eyebrows went up. “You never used it? You were too busy doing what?”

“Practice, man! I rarely have time for anything but practice.”

“So, this football thing is serious, then? You sure seem determined.”

Suddenly, he looked a little abashed. His gaze dropped to his feet as he shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty serious. I want it to be . . .” Lifting his gaze, he pointed at one of the trails. “Hey, I think that trail’s gonna take us to the reservoir. If you're willing to do two miles, I'm game. But we gotta hurry up, dude. I have that dinner thing with my parents, remember?”

I nodded. If he was gonna bring out ‘dude’, I really wasn't going to ask him any more questions. So we just started down the trail, back to silence again, our little conversation forgotten. Not five minutes later, though, he started talking about sports again, without broaching the topic of his career prospects this time. It was rather obvious that we were fundamentally different in our pursuits, and the way we approached them. I couldn’t have been less interested in sports, and clearly, he couldn’t have been less interested in natural science. I was beginning to like him though . . . Despite us having nothing in common. Or very little in common anyway. But if anything, at least we both seemed equally dedicated to something, even if it wasn't the same thing. And maybe that was one of the things we could have in common.

 When we finally reached the reservoir, I was so hopelessly out of breath and in pain that I could barely keep myself from doubling over.

“Hey man, you all right?” Wes asked, grabbing me by my elbow to steady me. He looked really worried there for a second. I must have looked like I was at death's door. He helped me down.

“I’m . . . fine . . . don’t . . . worry . . . about . . . it,” I said between gasps. Obviously, I wasn’t fine.

He shook his head but smiled. “I was gonna take you on an easy trail, man. This—” He pointed his index finger at me and made a circular motion to sum it up. “—was entirely your idea. But don't worry, with a little bit of practice, you'll be fine. It’s gonna be better the next time you come up here, I promise.”

Wes pulled me back up on my feet, and I straightened, with visible effort. He let go of my hand, and we both looked over the surface of the water; the reservoir was beautiful.

“So, what exactly are we looking for here?” he asked, totally clueless as to what we were supposed to be doing.

“I was hoping to catch sight of Van Dyke’s Salamander,” I explained. “It’s this small salamander with a distinctive color pattern on its back. But it's very rare.”

“Oh yeah? What does it look like?”

“Really small. Dark. With yellow, orange, or pinkish stripes or patches along its back. But it's so rare, the chances are we might not be able to find it. In that case, we'll just—”

Wes’s gaze suddenly shot to one of the stones jutting out from the water. “Oh, look, there it is! Small, dark, pink patches,” he said, interrupting me. “That's the one, isn't it?”

I traced his gaze skeptically, but—to my surprise—he wasn't wrong. What do you know, the actual Van Dyke’s salamander was chilling on the stones right there in front of us, looking exactly like it did in the pictures. I gaped at it, unable to believe our luck. I mean, what were the chances? We just rolled in and there it was, right in front of us.

I moved a little closer to take a better look.

“Um, isn't it going to swim away if it's spooked?” Wes asked, crouching down in the bushes. I did too.

“It doesn’t like water. If it swims, it could drown because it breathes through its skin. It doesn't have any lungs or gills or anything.”

Wes considered it. “Cool. I didn't know you could live without lungs.”

“Well, you couldn't. But this little guy can, due to its cutaneous respiration. That's the whole point of this assignment, you see—to learn things.”

He settled on his butt comfortably. “I'm open to learning new things. Especially if it gives an advantage against competitors.”

The sports again . . . I refrained from eye-rolling.

“Wildlife is all about competition, just so you know. Keep your eyes peeled, this might be right up your alley.”

I didn't think he was going to take my advice to heart; I was just trying to mildly encourage him. But he leaned forward and started buggin’ out at the salamander for real.

“All right, I'll keep my eyes peeled. But you gotta explain to me what I'm seeing. There was no way I was gonna be able to tell this little guy could breathe through its skin just by looking at it.”

“Yep, that's what the books are for. But you don't have time for them, I get it.”

He chuckled.

“Fine, deal!” I continued. “I'll tell you what you're looking at as long as you're paying attention, got it? I'm not explaining anything twice.”

“Strict!” he said, with a lopsided grin. “You're just like the coach. I like that—

I'm all ears.”

My heart nearly stopped when I thought he said ‘I’m all yours’ for a second. He said ‘ears’ though. Clearly, he said ‘ears’.

We continued watching the tiny amphibian, me taking the actual scientific notes and him providing a sort of running commentary that lacked any significance or research value and had more to do with sports than science, but I humored him. He was so close to me, our arms touched—skin against skin—and it made me forget all about science for a moment. But the more I listened to him, enthralled by his closeness, the more his football analogies started to make sense. I had to give it to him, there was logic to what he was saying, even if it was just a little bit.

Who would have thought a Van Dyke’s salamander could bridge the gap between our worlds? The specimen stayed put, luckily, so that we could continue to observe it. And I actually managed to make progress on our paper in the end, despite most of my attention being directed not at the salamander—but at Wes.

Just as we were about to leave though, a sudden beeping coming from my backpack caught Wes’s attention.

“What’s that?” he asked, taking a curious look at it.

I unzipped it and took a small handheld device out to show him.

“This is a portable Geiger counter,” I explained. “My grandpa got it for me for my birthday. It detects ionizing radiation. Alpha, beta, and gamma rays. Though it’s only supposed to be beeping when the radiation levels exceed the threshold.”

I checked out the readout on its tiny LCD screen. No wonder my Eberline ESP-1 was beeping—the output was way past the threshold now, at 223 CPM. And it was constantly growing, too. I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Why’s it beeping?” Wes asked.

“It’s not supposed to be doing this. The readout’s way too high,” I said. And I didn't know why. This was not supposed to be happening. Meanwhile, the readout passed 300 CPM.

I looked around, illogically, looking for something that could have spiked radiation levels. I didn’t even know what I expected to see. A plutonium rod? The readout wasn’t high enough for plutonium anyway; it was just strangely above normal.

“Malfunction?” Wes suggested.

“I dunno. Could be! My grandpa got it on classifieds for a hundred bucks. A new one would have been over five hundred.”

Meanwhile, the readout surpassed 500 CPM and counting. Wes looked at the screen too.

“Is it dangerous?”

“No, but it’s way above normal background levels. Under fifty is where it’s supposed to be. This . . . This is way off.”

For a minute, both of us just watched the numbers grow, captivated by this strange and ominous phenomenon. But when the readout reached 1,000, my Eberline ESP-1 suddenly stopped beeping and returned to 32.

I blinked at it—it was as if nothing had happened. It was back to normal, just like that.

“Whoa, what just happened?” Wes asked. “Why's it at thirty-two now?”

I shook my head; I had no idea. Wes was probably right—a malfunction would have been anyone’s best guess.

After a minute of us staring blankly at my Eberline (and it wasn't doing anything weird anymore), Wes asked, “Do you always carry this thing around?”

I grinned; as far as the weird contents of my backpack were concerned, this wasn’t even the half of it.

“Yeah, I mean . . . just for fun?” I said.

He scoffed, shaking his head. Obviously, we had different ideas of fun.

“It must have been a malfunction after all. Sorry,” I said, putting the device away. “Ready to go?”

He nodded.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you, Torrence Lawson,” he said suddenly and started walking away. I’m not sure he meant it as a compliment. I followed him, without making a comment.