Right.
Cowards.
I should’ve known they wouldn’t show their faces. My agitation got the better of me and I had a bite in my voice as I asked, “And to whom are we speaking?”
“I’m Elijah.”
I narrowed my eyes. His accent seemed to slip on his name.
“Well, Elijah, thanks for being on the show today. I guess I wanted to chat about the stupid rivalry between us, instigated by yourselves. Why do you feel there’s only space for one dating podcast at the university?”
“I don’t think that at all.”
The nape of my neck prickled. I felt like I’d heard that voice somewhere before. “That’s surprising to me, considering how much you guys have gone out of your way to discredit our show. It certainly feels like you don’t want to share this space with women. Are you misogynists?”
“Certainly not!” He sounded insulted.
I knew his voice from somewhere.
“Is it me, or is your voice familiar?”
“No. We’ve never met,” Elijah responded hurriedly.
“He answered that a little too fast,” Maddie said, giving me a look as if to say,“You’re on to something here.”
“I did not. Look, did you bring me on to interrogate me, or can we talk about putting this daft competitiveness to rest?”
Uh! The effrontery of him making it out like we’d started this moronic war.
“Daft?” Sierra butted in, expression gleeful. “I knew it! I thought I could hear a British accent coming through. He’s putting on a fake American accent!”
“Aha!” I knew there was something fishy about his voice.
Elijah’s twang got even more twangy. “I am not.”
Sierra scoffed. “Oh, really? Where in America are you from?”
“California.”
I watched Sierra as she rapid-fired questions at him. “Where?”
“Santa Barbara.”
“How long did you live there?”
“Jesus, are we really doing this?”
“Definitely a fake accent,” Sierra decided with certainty. She was right. I could hear the Britishness leaking through. “So fake! He’s a fake!”
“I’m not listening to this childish rubbish.”
“Rubbish? Daft? Only the Brits sayrubbishanddaft.”
Maddie raised her hands to get our attention. “Uh, guys, he hung up.”
“See? Totally faking it!”
I winced at Sierra’s outrage. We’d completely lost the calm, rational, mature tone I’d been hoping to maintain throughout the interview so that we looked like the calm, rational, mature podcasters in this scenario. Wonderful.
