Jesus, Lord Almighty, TwistyTrader had a crisp English accent.
A tickle trailed up her spine like someone running their fingers over the skin on the back of her neck. The richness of his voice and British accent made her face warm behind the gauze of her veil, and she clutched her computer mouse more tightly. The grit in his voice rumbling deep in his throat was disconcertingly sexy, like he might growl in her ear.
This was ridiculous.
Colleen didn’t have a thing for guys with English accents. She didn’t. It was a fluke that ninety percent of the actors and musicians she liked were English, plus that one Welsh guy who had attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Whether it was the naughty little devil on TV with the charming British accent, a green-eyed Asgardian prince (sort of) full of mischief, the British superspy, or that guy who totally should have been cast as the British superspy but was robbed of the part, all those guys were just amazing actors and totally not part of a pattern. Random chance formed clusters that meant absolutely nothing but looked like they did, and that’s why she’d learned about p-values and other statistical methods in her computer science and finance classes. Her total simping over any man with an English accent meant absolutely nothing.
And yet, she leaned forward at the deep, rich timbre of his voice. “You can’t appeal being on moderation.”
“I’m not a noob,” he said. Every one of his vowels was dark and round in his mouth, and the cadence of his speech just seemed like an indolent nobleman looking a serving wench up and down before he took a sip of wine. “I’m a valuable forum member who participates and educates the less-experienced members. Delaying my posts is overkill.”
About half the people on the Sherwood Forest forums were professional stock traders working for hedge funds or financial services companies. The other half were squeakers playing roulette with their college tuition loan money or near-retirees rolling the dice to boost their 401Ks that last couple hundred grand so they could quit working.
But TwistyTrader was one of the pros.
She said, “I understand, but the ruling is final. Two other moderators agreed that your post constituted a solicitation to coordinate a short squeeze on GameShack stock, which is not allowed under our rules. The post has been deleted, and your account will be moderated for fourteen days.”
“It wasn’t a solicitation,” he drawled.
“It totally was.” The chainmail lace on the lower half of her face tickled her lips as she spoke like they were plumped up and oversensitive. “You asked people to fill out a form to contact them for off-site coordination. That also violates our anonymity rules.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” A smile lightened his voice. “I have a blue check. I’m a verified whale-level trader. I don’t need to scam small traders to make money.”
Sherwood Forest’s one concession to security over anonymity was the trader verification system, because otherwise, any maternal basement dweller and their snoring Rottweiler could’ve claimed to be trading on the Wall Street floor for Goldman Sachs. Whale-level status was the highest verified level. It also meant TwistyTrader was admitted to the secret Moby Room, where the income levels were best expressed with double-digit exponents. “Yeah, I know.”
“I’m not one of the killer whales, picking off the minnows and sea bass for my own amusement.”
Four of the whale-level traders on the forum had been nicknamed the killer whales by the mods. The killer whales were jerks who fleeced small-time traders, like dropping hints that a stock was about to rise when the company was going to declare bankruptcy the following week.
Some gullible forum members had lost thousands on their poison tips.
A few traders had made bank assuming everything the killer whales said was reverse psychology, including Colleen. She’d paid off half her student loans from her unfinished degree by assuming everything they said was in bad faith. “The killer whales bankrupt minnows for fun.”
TwistyTrader sighed, his shadowed shoulders that stretched beyond the sides of his office chair rising and falling as his breath whispered from her speakers and feathered her ears. “The killer whales are psychopaths and enjoy hurting people. They’re successful, yes, but I don’t know why the mods haven’t kicked them off the forum yet. I’ve met a lot of people like the killer whale group in the finance industry. I’m not a sadist, and I’m not scamming. I don’t want you to think I am.”
“I’m not taking you off moderated status, TwistyTrader.”
“Call me Twist.”
“Fine, Twist, but it doesn’t matter what your motivation was. You can’t coordinate short squeezes on our forums. That’s market manipulation. It’s against the law. If the Securities and Exchange Commission starts sniffing around, we’ll go down in flames. People go to jail for stuff like that, and we moderators would probably be in the first wave of people they took down.”
Twist was leaning on one of the arms of his chair, and the silhouette of his head nodded. “It must be difficult, refereeing all these people who are out to make a quick buck any way they can.”
Colleen drew a breath, relieved that he understood. “I understand that people want to make money, but some of those strategies are illegal. I don’t want to go to jail because some jerk I’ve never met, and probably don’t even like, decided it would be fun to skirt the law. And this is a volunteer gig. I don’t even get paid to herd these cats.”
Twist was chuckling by the time she finished talking. “And yet you put so much time into it. From your posts, it’s obvious you have significant knowledge in the fields of both computer science and finance. From your voice, I’d guess you’re young. Midtwenties, perhaps?”
Twenty-three. “That’s personal information. It’s against forum rules to ask.”
“Right. You could be working for a major Wall Street firm or have your own clientele. But since you’re a Sherwood Forest moderator, you can’t be employed in the field. Sherwood’s neutrality rules forbid it.”
When he said forbid, his British accent seemed more pronounced. “Yeah, I’m not working in the field.”
“Are you still at university?”
At university. The crisp Briticisms peppering Twist’s speech drew her attention like flashes of light. “No, I’m not in college. Where are you from?”
Twist chuckled again, but his laugh sounded like she’d said something dirty. “Personal information.”
