<p>The ongoing debate about reliance and trust in artificial intelligence (AI) systems seems to be never ending, challenging our understanding and application of these concepts in human-AI interactions. In this work, we argue for a pragmatic approach to solve this conundrum by focusing on reliance and the three key expectations that should guide human-AI interactions: appropriate reliance, efficiency, and motivation by objective reasons. By focusing on these expectations, we show that it is possible to reconcile reliance with trust in a manner that is both theoretically sound and practically useful. As it turns out, reliance is the key relation of interest while trust in AI is a derived concept that helps explaining these expectations. Our reliance-centered framework does not dismiss the concept of trust in AI but repositions it as a key property of reliance, offering a pragmatic alternative to classical rational or motivational accounts of trust that prove difficult to apply in the context of human-AI interactions. As AI continues to integrate into society, particularly in high-stakes environments like healthcare, our pragmatic approach provides a practical and meaningful framework for addressing the nuances of trust in AI.</p>