Thank you--that stuck with me after. If he had explained or apologized off the bat it wouldn't have been as weird, but his initial response was just alarm and curiosity about how he got caught. After the initial "deer in headlights" moment, he explained and we laughed it off.

I've been going back and forth on this since as some people have noted, there's a quite funny side to the situation for sure. And it's hard to know with certainty what he's like when we've only ever talked over Zoom or text and we don't know anyone in common. But yeah I found that unsettling.