You again, p.1
You, Again, page 1
PRAISE FOR
You, Again
“Fresh, witty, and utterly romantic, this is the deliciously offbeat modern reimagining of When Harry Met Sally I never knew I needed. Kate Goldbeck is an absolute star!”
—Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis
“This is a romance sung in perfect pitch! A spectacular debut!”
—Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners
“You, Again reads like a romcom classic in the making. I’ve never read anything like it. This book is raw and sexy and radically vulnerable, and I’m already desperately missing Ari and Josh.”
—Rachel Lynn Solomon, New York Times bestselling author of Weather Girl and The Ex Talk
“You, Again is a knockout. Ari and Josh are my favorite type of couple—funny, flawed, and complicated, with prickly exteriors hiding tender hearts. I’ll be first in line for anything Kate Goldbeck writes from now on.”
—Ava Wilder, author of How to Fake It in Hollywood and Will They or Won’t They
“Equal parts a studied homage and decisively modern, Kate Goldbeck debuts with a master class in banter. This is a luxurious contemporary romance to savor. Every character is as sexy as they are gloriously messy.”
—Rosie Danan, author of The Roommate
“You, Again is one of those special, singular books you wish you could read for the first time again and again. It’s funny and sharp, crackling with wit and chemistry, a clever homage to all the best parts of romantic comedies while making them feel new.”
—Alicia Thompson, bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers
“Not your average romantic comedy. Ari and Josh’s love story is raw, chaotic, unconventional, very funny, and very sexy. An edgy, modern, slow-burn love story, with nipple piercings.”
—Georgia Clark, author of It Had to Be You
“The humor is sharp, the dialogue is equal parts poignant and fun, and the romance will make you giddy.”
—Tarah DeWitt, author of Funny Feelings
You, Again is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Kate Goldbeck
“A Note from the Author: I’ll HaveWhat Nora’s Having” by Kate Goldbeck copyright © 2023 by Kate Goldbeck
Dial Delights Extras copyright © 2023 by Penguin Random House LLC
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
The Dial Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Dial Delights and colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
ISBN 9780593448120
Ebook ISBN 9780593448137
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Debbie Glasserman, adapted for ebook
Cover illustration: Nicole Rifkin
Cover design: Cassie Gonzales
ep_prh_6.1_144900906_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
2014
Chapter 1
Three Years Later
Chapter 2
Two Years Later
Chapter 3
Three Years Later
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Two Months Later
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Five Months Later
Chapter 25
Three Months Later
Chapter 26
Two Months Later
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
One Year Later
Chapter 31
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Dial Delights
About the Author
_144900906_
1
“EXCUSE ME, SIR?” ARI STANDS her ground, feet shoulder-width apart, on the sidewalk in front of the Brooklyn Museum. “I know that someone who waited ten minutes for a six-dollar cold brew has the time to stop and talk to me about protecting the second-largest bobcat habitat in New Jersey.”
Always best to start with a provocation. None of that “do you have a moment?” crap. No pedestrian in this city has “a moment” for a canvasser.
The tall man in sunglasses, expensive jeans, and a dark sweater—slightly hunched from the weight of a large backpack—slows down, not quite to a full stop. He glances at her neon vest and binder, realizing his mistake a half-second too late.
“I’m on a fucking call!” he snaps, angling his body to route around her.
It’s fine. Ari is used to people faking calls to avoid engaging with her. She takes a step to the right, blocking his path again. She needs one more donation to make quota, so Tall Sweater Nightmare Man can give her twenty seconds to make the case for the bobcats.
“Can I have a sip?” She reaches toward his cold brew cup with a minimalist Blue Bottle logo. “I’ve had a super long day out here.” This trick—passed down from Gabe, her coworker-with-benefits—works about twenty percent of the time, which is a phenomenal success rate in the business of pestering strangers for (no) fun and (little) profit.
“Un-fucking-believable!” He lifts the cup out of her reach and jaywalks across Eastern Parkway, turning his head to look back at her and scowl.
Or maybe to ensure she’s not following him.
When Gabe told their improv class about the “lucrative opportunities” with ProActivate, he’d assured them that they’d become accustomed to constant brush-offs, the lack of eye contact, the utter rejection. “It’s good practice for comedy,” he’d said. “And it pays better.”
Everything pays better than comedy.
But at least onstage you can flop in front of dozens of people at once. Ten efficient minutes of agony. On the street, it’s like extending your hand every thirty seconds and getting one of those extra-painful envelope paper cuts in return.
Something, something…the definition of insanity.
Ostensibly, Ari moved to New York to pursue comedy. When she met Gabe, one of the charismatic leaders of the sketch comedy theater where Ari had planted her flag four months ago, he’d spun tales of casting agents frequenting open mics and late-night encounters with Daily Show writers. He’d become a hero and a crush.
What Gabe neglected to mention is that most of those encounters occurred while he worked the register at the noodle place down the block from the studio.
On the drizzly walk home, she keeps an eye out for one last chance to make her donation quota. The woman with the promotional umbrella, letting her Yorkie pee on a flower bed? The stocky man with a gingery beard and thick-frame glasses, waiting in the doorway of a bar on Washington Avenue? But neither feels likely. Resigned, Ari turns to head toward home.
When she responded to Natalie’s posting on Craigslist, looking for someone to sublet the “cozy” second bedroom in her “Prospect Heights–adjacent” apartment, Ari quickly discovered it was actually a twenty-five-minute walk from Prospect Heights. “The room is technically considered a closet,” Nat had explained when Ari came to look at it, “but there’s already a lofted twin bed in there and a desk would totally fit.”
The desk didn’t fit. But living with Natalie was definitely preferable to Ari’s last living situation, which was a futon in a friend’s cousin’s living room.
Especially tonight. Natalie spent the weekend in the Hamptons and she won’t be back until late. The apartment will be luxuriously empty: the perfect opportunity for Ari to use her noisiest vibrator.
That was the plan, anyway.
“Guess who met quota standing outside Whole Paycheck?” Gabe is leaning against the front door to her building, under the awning, just out of the rain. He has the classic good looks of an Eddie Bauer catalog model or someone who poses for stock photos, with his wavy-but-coiffed hair and twinkling brown eyes. “Like shooting fish in a barrel. How’d you do?”
Gabe pushes off the brick wall, his neon ProActivate vest tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. He’s always a big hit with the leashes-and-strollers crowd.
“One short,” Ari replies, fishing her keys out of her pocket.
“Bummer.” He holds up a Blu-ray of Inception. “Wanna finish it?”
It’s a flimsy pretense. They’ve been “watching” Inception for the last three weeks, in fourteen-minute increments. Last time, they’d paused after a particularly horny round of “Fuck, Marry, Kill.” (Ari: Hardy, Watanabe, Gordon-Levitt. Gabe: Cotillard, Murphy, DiCaprio.)
“Natalie’s out,” Ari says, forcing her key into the lock. “I was planning on—”
“Perfect.” He holds the door open. “I have a date in Boerum Hill later.”
When they get in the apartment, Gabe pulls off his shirt before Ari gets the disc in Natalie’s Blu-ray player.
It’s convenient, this thing with Gabe. He’s easygoing, open to trying new stuff. Proficient at undoing her bra with one hand. They both want sex and to not be boyfriend-girlfriend in equal amounts. He’s the first man Ari’s been with who doesn’t take it as a huge personal failing if she introduces a vibrator into the equation.
And after dealing with face-to-face rejection all day, it’s nice to be wanted.
At 1:06:47 into the movie and two pairs of underwear on the floor, the intercom buzzes in three shrill bursts.
“Did you order takeout?” Gabe asks, breathing hard. He flops back onto the sofa. “A sandwich actually sounds amazing right now.”
“How would I have done that?” Ari sits up. “With my third hand?” Two more buzzes trill through the apartment, followed by one sustained buzz.
Ari rolls off the sagging couch and stumbles to the intercom. She punches the talk button: “Yeah?”
The response is a garbled mix of static, a low voice, “food,” and “Natalie.”
“Buzzer’s broken,” she says. “I’ll come down.” Ari tugs her tank top over her head. “Natalie orders these macrobiotic meals,” she tells Gabe, who’s already back on his phone. “Must be the delivery guy.” She picks his boxers up off the rug, scanning the floor. “Crap. Where did my underwear go?”
“Underwear is overrated.” Gabe heaves himself off the couch. “I’m gonna jump in the shower.”
Ari pulls on his boxers, shoves her feet into her sneakers, and jogs down the stairs to grab the meals from the delivery guy.
When she reaches the ground floor, she sees a hulking shadow through the window at the top of the heavy door at the entryway. But as she begins to open the door, the shadow takes on a familiar shape.
Tall Sweater Nightmare Man is standing under her awning, holding a reusable shopping bag of produce that looks like an eighteenth-century Dutch still life.
He’s pale and lanky—mid-twenties?—with dark hair and a longish face that’s oddly proportioned.
But not in a bad way.
His eyes move back and forth across the slice of her face that’s visible between the frame and the door.
Ari clears her throat. “Can I help you?”
He looks confused, but doesn’t answer.
“Are you here to tell me about your Lord and savior Jesus Christ?”
“I’m Jewish.” He peeks over her shoulder. “Are you Natalie’s roommate?”
He smells like expensive botanical aftershave.
“Maybe,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Are these her gluten-free paleo meals?”
“This is olive oil–poached cod with mussels, orange, and chorizo,” he says, shifting his weight impatiently. “Did Natalie not mention I was coming?”
As if on cue, Ari’s phone chirps multiple times.
Nat : need huuuuge favor.
I got my days mixed up.
Josh is supposed to make me dinner tonight
Nat : the chef.
he’s already on his way with all these groceries.
I’m on the earlier Jitney but still running so late
could you let him in?
Shit.
This is typical Natalie bullshit, and she gets away with it because she has luminous skin and this amazing laugh and Ari has a crush on her in a way that’s completely different from her occasional horny Gabe feelings. Namely, an inability to say “no.”
“Wait, who are you?” Ari holds the phone screen to her chest, shielding it from his view.
“I’m Josh. Natalie’s boyfriend.” He doesn’t phrase it in the form of a question. It’s just a statement. A fact.
Ari spits back a fact of her own: “Nat doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
* * *
“YES, SHE DOES,” he says with the confidence of someone who believes it to be true. Basically. “Me.”
It’s nearly imperceptible, but the roommate’s brow wrinkles at the word boyfriend. Josh prides himself on noticing the details other people miss.
According to his schedule, in eight minutes Natalie should be sipping a glass of Sancerre, watching him supreme oranges with his Shun Dual Core Kiritsuke knife.
Instead, he’s staring at a pink-haired stranger in men’s underwear and a faded Obama hope T-shirt with the sleeves cut off.
“Nat’s not here. She’s running late,” she says, not opening the door any farther. “I can put the food in the fridge. There’s a bar down the block where you could hang out till she gets home.”
Seconds of wasted time tick away in his brain, growing louder. Standing in the hallway, holding one hundred and seventy dollars’ worth of high-end perishable groceries, he considers abandoning the plan. Calling an Uber. Rescheduling for another evening when all the elements of the concept can come together seamlessly.
But that would be failure.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “This requires thirty minutes of prep plus fifty minutes cooking time. I need to get started now. And it’s raining.”
Tonight, after the mousse au citron, Josh Kestenberg and Natalie Ferrer-Hodges will transition from the confusing messiness of casually dating–question mark to full-fledged relationship–period.
Exclamation point.
No, period. More tasteful.
“If I do you this favor and let you in—”
“ ‘Favor’?”
“—then you’re going to atone for your rudeness earlier today and help me make my quota.” The corner of her mouth tugs into the tiniest possible grin but her eyes are not smiling. A little dimple forms on the left side of her cheek. “I’ll need a forty-dollar donation. I take credit cards.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” It’s not often that Josh feels three steps behind.
“Glad you finally asked! With the support of wildlife lovers like you, the Nature Conservancy is establishing ‘Bobcat Alley,’ a protected greenbelt where native wild felines can roam and—”
“That was you?” Josh sets the grocery bag down on the stoop.
“Un-fucking-believable, right?” There’s a full Cheshire cat grin on her face now. Nothing coy about it.
“You’re extorting me?” He steps forward, towering over her. “Is this some kind of scam you pull?”
“Yes, I pretend to live in apartments all over Brooklyn in order to guilt my roommate’s angry trust-fund dates into making recurring charitable donations.” Recurring? Fantastic, he’ll be on a mailing list for the rest of his life. “Do you want to hear the talking points about the bobcats?”
“No.”
“Thank you for helping to build a future where bobcats thrive,” she recites by rote. She opens the door wider, letting him follow her into the building’s vestibule. “This is like the cold open of a Law & Order episode, letting a strange man into my apartment. You could tie me up with an extension cord and steal our laptops or something. But now you’ll be the last name on my donor log, so if I go missing, you’ll be the first suspect.” She stops for a breath at the foot of the stairs. “I’m Ari.”
“Josh Kestenberg.” His hand twitches in an automatic handshake response but he curbs the instinct. “I have a lot of prep to do, so you’ll have to tie yourself up with the extension cord.”
