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This book is for the brave and bold Maria Blalock
Dear reader,
This book is a sequel to It Ends with Us and begins right where the first book concluded. For the best reading experience, It Starts with Us should be read second in the two-book series.
After releasing It Ends with Us, I never imagined I would one day be writing a sequel. I also never imagined that the book would be received as it has been by so many. I am so grateful to all of you who found Lily’s story to be as empowering as I find my own mother’s.
After It Ends with Us gained momentum on TikTok, I was inundated with requests for more Lily and Atlas. And how could I possibly deny a community that has changed my life? This novel was written as a thank-you for the tremendous support, and because of that, I wanted to deliver a much lighter experience.
Lily and Atlas deserve it.
I hope you enjoy their journey.
All my love,
Colleen Hoover
Chapter One Atlas
The way ass whole is misspelled in red spray paint across the back door of Bib’s makes me think of my mother.
She would always insert a brief pause between syllables, making it sound like two separate words. I wanted to laugh every time I heard it, but it was hard to find the humor in it as a child when I was always the recipient of the hurled insult.
“Ass… whole,” Darin mutters. “Had to be a kid. Most adults know how to spell that word.”
“You’d be surprised.” I touch the paint, but it doesn’t stick to my fingers. Whoever did this must have done it right after we closed last night.
“Do you think the misspelling was intentional?” he asks. “Are they suggesting you’re so much of an asshole that you’re a whole entire ass?”
“Why do you assume they were targeting me? They could have been targeting you or Brad.”
“It’s your restaurant.” Darin takes off his jacket and uses it to pry a large shard of exposed broken glass out of the window. “Maybe it was a disgruntled employee.”
“Do I have disgruntled employees?” I can’t think of a single person on payroll who would do something like this. The last person I’d had quit was five months ago, and she left on good terms after getting a college degree.
“There was that guy who did the dishes before you hired Brad. What was his name? He was named after some kind of mineral or something—it was super weird.”
“Quartz,” I say. “It was a nickname.” I haven’t thought about that guy in so long. I doubt he’s holding a grudge against me after all this time. I fired him right after we opened because I found out he wasn’t washing the dishes unless he could actually see food on them. Glasses, plates, silverware—anything that came back to the kitchen from a table looking fairly clean, he’d just put it straight on the drying rack.
If I wouldn’t have fired him, he would have gotten us shut down by the health department.
“You should call the police,” Darin says. “We’ll have to file a report for insurance.”
Before I object, Brad appears at the back door, his shoes crunching the broken glass beneath his feet. Brad has been inside taking inventory in order to see if anything was stolen.
He scratches the stubble on his jaw. “They took the croutons.”
There’s a confused pause.
“Did you say ‘croutons’?” Darin asks.
“Yeah. They took the whole thing of croutons that were prepared last night. Nothing else seems to be missing, though.”
That wasn’t at all what I was expecting him to say. If someone broke into a restaurant and didn’t take appliances or anything else of value, they probably broke in because they were hungry. I know that kind of desperation firsthand. “I’m not reporting this.”
Darin turns to me. “Why not?”
“They might catch whoever did it.”
“That’s the point.”
I grab an empty box out of the dumpster and start picking up shards of glass. “I broke into a restaurant once. Stole a turkey sandwich.”
Brad and Darin are both staring at me now. “Were you drunk?” Darin asks.
“No. I was hungry. I don’t want anyone arrested for stealing croutons.”
“Okay, but maybe food was only the beginning. What if they come back for appliances next time?” Darin says. “Is the security camera still broken?”
