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Chloe waits.

I look away from the screen.

She notices immediately.

“What happened with Ross?” Chloe asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Blaire,” she says again.

I press my lips together.

Chloe narrows her eyes. “What did you do?”

Heat rises into my face.

“I slept with him,” I admit.

Chloe closes her eyes for a second. “No.”

“Yes,” I say.

“You fell straight back into the blue-eyed trap,” Chloe says.

“Please don’t call it that.”

“I was there the first time,” she replies. “I’m allowed one comment.”

I rub my forehead. “It wasn’t planned.”

“I assumed that,” Chloe says.

“It just happened.”

Chloe gives me a look that tells me she doesn’t believe that explanation for a second.

I sigh. “Fine. It didn’t exactly just happen. There was kissing. There was arguing. There was more kissing. Then things got out of hand.”

Her expression softens.

“And now?” Chloe asks.

“That’s the problem,” I say.

She settles back slightly and waits.

I tell her enough to bring her up to speed. The flowers. The lunches at the archive. The earrings. The way Ross keeps finding time for me without pretending the rest of his life has disappeared. I don’t dramatize any of it because I don’t need to. Chloe knows him well enough from what I lived through the first time to understand why the difference matters.

“He’s trying,” I say finally.

Chloe studies me through the screen.

“You believe that?”

“Yes,” I admit.

The word sits there between us.