Page 138 of One Last Shot

She hovered her thumb over to swipe it away, except... well,you gotta find a way to forgive him.

Maybe that was the first step in stepping away from the chaos.

She answered. “What?”

A beat. “Boo?”

His voice rippled through her, old memories, old emotions. She shook them away.Forgive. “Yes.” She sighed. “What do you want, Blake?” Okay, so it might take a minute.

Another beat. “Thanks for answering. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”

“I know.”

Now he sighed. “Boo... I broke up with Misty.”

“I know. It was all over the internet.”

“Yeah, what she said. But not what I said to her.”

She closed her eyes, ran her finger and thumb against them. “Blake, I don’t care?—”

“I’m sorry, Boo. I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

Her eyes opened. “What?”

He exhaled hard. “I was a jerk. During the show and after the show and... I’m so sorry.”

She had nothing.

“What you don’t know is that... well, everything we did, everything I said—I meant it.”

Oh boy. “Blake, this is?—”

“I’m not done. I was in love with you, Boo. Truly. And then... then the producer came to me and said thatthey had projected Misty to win and that if I wanted second place, I needed to support her.”

She went cold. “What are you saying, Blake?”

“The entire show was rigged. Misty was a better fit for their after-show social media, and... they cut so many of my words out, changed them around.”

“You called me Boo Hoo. You said I was the weak link. You... we...” She blew out her breath. “I believed you when you said you loved me.”

“Ididlove you. And then it all got... messy. I should have never listened to Reynolds. He lied. Said that they’d keep our night out of it?—”

“They replayed your body cam image of us kissing!”

“I know.”

Silence.

Then, “Wait. Did you say that Reynolds Gray was the producer?”

“Yeah.Survivor Questis a Mike Grizz production. Didn’t you know that?”

She swallowed. Drew in a breath.

Yeah, she was really an idiot. “Blake. I forgive you.”

She expected some sort of fanfare from heaven, maybe a rush of emotions. But it felt like she’d simply swept away the last of the debris from her heart.