In this first look at an all-new episode of 'Southern Charm,' Shep Rose offers words of wisdom to his ex-girlfriend, Taylor Ann Green.
Shep Rose and Taylor Ann Green are attempting the whole "friendly exes" thing.
"Some people would say it's unfair, what I want, which is to have a nice relationship with Taylor, not romantic," Shep remarks in ET's sneak peek at this week's all-new episode of Southern Charm. "But I'm inexperienced in this territory. This is uncharted waters."
The duo meets up for a little catch-up beach walk with their pups, Penelope and Craig (not Conover), in the wake of Taylor's confession that she did in fact hook up with Austen Kroll after initially denying as much. Complicating matters is the tangled web of the hookup revelation: Austen is one of Shep's good buddies, and the ex-fling of Taylor's now-estranged bestie, Olivia Flowers -- making it a double-sided betrayal in Olivia's eyes. On top of that, Taylor and Austen's confirmation about their dalliance came to light just before tragedy struck, with Olivia's brother, Conner, dying unexpectedly.
"Now you need to figure out what the next move with Olivia is, and how you want your relationship to look," Shep tells Taylor, noting that he's just come from visiting Olivia and her family.
"Yeah, I mean, I breached trust with a friend, and a very good friend," Taylor admits.
"I would just say, 'I'm sorry. I should've told you, immediately. It'll never, ever happen again. If you'll have me, I'd like to stay around and be your friend,'" Shep advises.
"It's good advice," Taylor says. Watch the sweet moment play out here:
Fans will have to keep tuning in to see where these relationships go, but judging by what Taylor and Olivia shared (separately) with ET ahead of the season 9 premiere, their friendship has yet to make its way back on track.
"If you test somebody's trust or friendship's trust-- I'm such a forgiving person, where I go, 'If this happened one time I can forgive and forget, let's move forward,'" Taylor shared, "and I think that's what Olivia and I have going on here. So, that doorway is still open -- it's not shut forever -- and I can only hope that we'll continue to throw it wide, back open at some point, but we'll just have to revisit that some other time."
"We have this special bond, getting to know her when she moved to Charleston was really sweet and special, especially having the four of us, myself, Shep, she and Austen, all hanging out," she added. "It was really special, so I hope to rebuild that to some extent. I don't know if it will ever be the same. I know that I can get there, but it's just kinda surface right now, or tabled, and will resurface at reunion."
"At the beginning, I really did want it to be, she and I, OK out of it," Olivia said. "But it wasn't that easy, and at the end of the day, you kinda have to listen to yourself and take a step back and look at bird's eye view."
"It's certainly not what it was before," she continued, but noted that suffering similar tragedies did create some space to start healing. Taylor's brother, Worth, also died unexpectedly, just after filming the season.
"I was sure to reach out and let her know I was like there, because one thing I learned in this season is that things really get put in perspective," Olivia said. "Like, the bulls**t, surface-level drama, at the end of the day, doesn't matter as much as the deeper-level things. So, I wanted her to know I was there for that, and always would be, but we're not where we were before."
Southern Charm airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
RELATED CONTENT:
