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For a fraction of a second, Sienna looked wonderfully gobsmacked.
Point to me.
But Sienna wasn’t out yet.
‘Look,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘We can debate this till the end of time. But I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating.’
‘The hell does that mean?’ Robin asked evenly.
Sienna’s cogs continued to whir. ‘The panel. We could open the floor to questions from the audience,’ she smirked. ‘Real people, real dilemmas. I tell them how to choose safely. You can tell them, well, whatever nonsense occurs to you in the moment.’
‘Intriguing,’ Robin said, delighted. ‘But how do we judge the winner?’
Sienna considered. ‘We take a vote. Let the audience decide whose advice they’d actually take.’
Robin stuck out a hand. ‘You’re on.’
Sienna gave her a quick, vigorous handshake. ‘I’ll send Gemma a proposal for the amended panel. But I think she’ll take it.’
‘No doubt. Well, I guess I’ll see you in the trenches,’ Robin said, as she grabbed her coffee and tote bag and strode out, thrilled to have found a true, worthy adversary in Sienna Vance.
Five
The green room backstage at the WLW Audio Fest smelled of stale tea and bad coffee.
Sienna stood before the full-length mirror, adjusting her dark navy suit jacket. Outside, the dull roar of several hundred sapphic podcast enthusiasts echoed through the convention hall.
Sienna inhaled slowly, adjusting her cuffs as she readied herself to dismantle Robin Croft piece by piece in front of an audience.
This was definitely a good idea. She certainly wasn’t worried that she’d proposed this prize fight in a fit of pique and might suffer a devastatingly humiliating and very public loss.
‘T-two minutes to stage, Sienna,’ Pip said, appearing in the doorway, a small mic in hand, which she quickly attached to Sienna’s lapel.
‘Have you checked the speaker levels?’ Sienna asked.
‘Levels are correct,’ Pip said, taking a step backwards into the hallway. ‘Though the techs here were not happy about being second-guessed.’
‘Tough,’ Sienna said, stepping out of the green room and into the bustling backstage corridor, navigating around stagehands and trailing cables. And then, she saw her.
Robin Croft was leaning against a wall, engaged in animated conversation with an audio technician. She was wearing that yellow leather jacket she always wore, over a graphic tee, dark jeans, and high-top sneakers. Her blonde hair was styled in soft waves, and as she laughed at something the technician said, her entire face lit up.
What a total fucking phoney.
Sienna cleared her throat, stepping up beside her. ‘I trust you’re actually planning to stick to your time limits today, Croft.’
Robin turned, her bright blue eyes sweeping over Sienna’s navy suit with a smirk.
‘Well, look at you, Vance,’ Robin purred, stepping into her space easily. Sienna told herself not to step back and just about managed it.
‘You look like a very expensive lawyer. Are you planning to sue the audience?’ Robin asked cheerfully.
‘I’m planning to save them from your terrible advice,’ Sienna shot back. She gestured toward Robin’s chest. ‘Your lapel mic is crooked.’
Instead of fixing it, Robin tilted her head. ‘Fix it for me? My hands are full.’
Robin held up her hands, showing a coffee cup in one and a crumpled paper bag with a muffin poking out in the other.
Every professional instinct told Sienna to make Robin figure it out herself. But the sight of the dangling, slanted wire made her hands itch, and before her brain could talk her out of it, she reached up.
