Shep Rose Says Austen Kroll 'Should Have Known Better' Than to Hook Up with Taylor Ann Green tram

The new season of Southern Charm will see Austen Kroll getting a little too friendly with his friend Shep Rose’s ex-girlfriend Taylor Ann Green.

But Kroll, 36, tells PEOPLE, “I don't think it's as cut and dry as the trailer or the news [that] has leaked about what went on between us.”

Kroll had been dating Olivia Flowers, but it never progressed into a full-blown relationship. “Going into this season, we weren't really in the best place,” Flowers tells PEOPLE. “We hadn't talked or seen each other for a while, so it wasn't that there was a lot of interactions before. You'll see that on the season, just trying to navigate where we see each other next as friends.”

Flowers, 31, bonded with Rose’s ex-girlfriend Green, 28, over being single.

“I was really excited about having more time with Taylor in this season just because we had gotten so close off camera,” she shares. “It was exciting to have the time to show Olivia and Taylor, not so much as us being like the girlfriends of Austen and Shep.”

Green calls the dynamic between the female stars “really strong” this year and tells PEOPLE she viewed Kroll as an “older brother” after her breakup from Rose.

“We just really leaned on each other and we grew our friendship to be tighter,” Green says of her dynamic with the Pillows and Beer podcast co-host going into season 9.

Green acknowledges that when her friendship with Kroll turned into something more, it “drew a wedge between myself and a really good friend [Olivia].”

She continues, “I take full blame for everything that transpired and how I handled the situation and the things I said and how I acted. That was really tough. I think that there's a lot of forgiveness that can be had. That's a big thing this year — there's a lot of forgiveness and tough love.”

Flowers says her friendship with Green remains affected.

“We're certainly not in the place we were this time last year,” Flowers acknowledges. “I don't necessarily know if we'll ever get back to that place. She recently went through something very tragic and difficult and I reached out then because that's really all that matters, none of the other drama. But there's a lot more distance there with us.”

In Rose’s mind, the blame falls on Kroll.

“It came out, and it was a tough pill to swallow,” the Average Expectations author, 43, tells PEOPLE of learning about Kroll hooking up with his ex-girlfriend. “ I couldn't help but think, to be honest, that Austen should have known better. She was vulnerable, she was hurt, and they were very close friends because of me, and he's got to know better.”

Though Rose decided he didn’t want “to throw away” his friendship with Kroll, Rose says, “I wouldn't trust him very much around a girl I liked in the near future and beyond.”

Rose hopes Kroll “learned a lesson” from the situation.

“I hope he crossed an honesty threshold and has changed,” Rose says. “And maybe we'll be closer for it. At the time, we're pretty close, at the current moment we are. I don't want to seem like a weakling by not holding him to task, but you'll have to watch this season.”