Everything After - Paperback

by E. M. Vélez (Author)

West Hollywood used to be the end of the rainbow. Now it's nowhere-just the place twenty-year-old Ana Olmeda fled to disappear. She didn't have much to lose, just problem parents, the future she'd worked toward for years, and her: Natalia de León.

Ana's California life is made of rote days serving fussy espresso drinks with a fake smile and empty nights alone with her books and sad takeout in a barren apartment over Sauveterre, a French pâtisserie. Ana is heavily armored, and she likes it that way.

Then, quietly, her armor begins to chip.

Ana steps in when Sauveterre's head pastry chef lands a pilot and quits just minutes before the 4 a.m. prep work starts. Owner Luca Errard refuses to waste the talents of the cashier who quietly ran his kitchen without chaos-suddenly, Ana's his head pâtissière, thrust in the spotlight after a lifetime in the wings. Then comes Chente, a scrawny, abandoned pug whose velvet muzzle and soulful eyes are more than her armored heart can withstand. Then it's Lux, an androgynous musician who sees the Ana everyone else tried to ignore and loves every part of her. And then there's Memo: a sweet soul in cholo's armor, whose touch awakens things in her she never let herself want.

New loves, a new calling, a new mentor-Ana can finally relax. She's left it all behind: the city, the secrets, the parents, the grave, the girl who broke her heart and the desperate need to forgive her, all safely buried under the deeper need to forget.

But some secrets are dangerous to keep-and some girls refuse to be forgotten.