Now That We Don't Talk

by Rachel Pologe

Genres: General Fiction; Jewish Fiction; Romance; Holiday Romance

Synopsis

A commitment-phobe finds herself stuck spending Hanukkah with her childhood best friend turned nemesis, only for holiday chaos to ensue and complicated feelings to resurface, in this emotionally resonant debut romance.

Norah Gold is a bolter. She avoids emotional situations at all costs, doesn’t do meaningful relationships, and when things get a little too real, she runs. She hasn’t let herself fall in love in nearly a decade, not since her whole world fell apart when her dad suddenly passed away. Desperate to escape a friends-with-benefits situation gone clingy, she returns home to Chicago for the holidays. Her one goal? Avoid Henry Cole, the boy who blew up her life and broke her heart back in high school. Easier said than done when she discovers that their mothers are dating and insist on celebrating the holidays together.

A decade later, Henry Cole is all custom suits and condescension. He is order to her chaos and absolutely insufferable about it. When Norah and Henry get snowed in together and learn just how serious their moms’ relationship is, they call a truce to make it through all eight nights of Hanukkah without setting each other on fire. As they begin to rediscover the foundation that made them so close growing up, Norah is desperate to keep her distance—the last thing she can handle is reopening decade-old emotional wounds. But even though they’ve tried to escape the past, Norah and Henry have unfinished business too pressing to ignore. Can Norah shake off her deep-seated impulse to bolt, or are they destined to flame out just like they did as teenagers?

Release date: October 20, 2026

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter 1

When someone makes a grand declaration, you're supposed to feel ooey gooey, right? When you're lying next to a perfectly attractive guy after he's given you two earth-shattering orgasms, and he's telling you he wants to make it official, that's supposed to be a good thing. I should be looking into his eyes and nodding along, but I can't. All I want in this moment is to get up and go pee because the last thing I need is to travel tomorrow with a burgeoning UTI.

I sit up and look at Rob. I try to really, really look at him. The slope of his collarbone, giving way to a sprinkling of freckles that must be present year-round because they're definitely not being coaxed out by a frigid December in New York. Hazel eyes, flitting between green and gold, depending on the light. A mess of sandy hair, thick and wild on the top, but buzzed close at the sides. He has a real bed-a mattress and a frame, which actually does say a lot, considering, even if it is an IKEA Malm.

I guess he shut up for a moment.

Shit.

He's staring back at me now. Prompting me to say something with his all-too-manicured eyebrows. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Rob was just supposed to be a hookup. I must be doing something wrong if my fuckbuddy, who I've exclusively spent time with horizontally (and perpendicularly), is asking me to DTR.

When Rob said it the first time tonight, that he wanted to be my boyfriend, it was at the height of foreplay, while he teased my entrance. I thought it was a weird direction to go for dirty talk, but figured it was just the hormones and he'd shake himself out of it after he came. But he's lying next to me, his now-shriveled cock still inside the mess of the condom, and he's saying it again.

"I want to be with you, Norah. I'm serious. Don't you think there's something here?"

There is nothing particularly wrong with this man. I just don't quite know how we got to this point. I can count the nonphysical and sexual things I know about Rob on one hand. He's from the Bay Area. He likes IPAs and Monster energy drinks. I think he has a job? He's in a band, because of course he is, but he has a day job. I know he does. I just can't for the life of me recall what it is in this moment. Because that's not what we do. We have a good laugh and then get down to business. I can tell you so much more about his deliciously curved cock than his greatest hopes and dreams.

"You're a . . . great . . . guy?" I say, every word out of my mouth sounding like a question I don't have the answer to. "I just need some time to think about it. Plus, I'm flying home super early tomorrow, so I should probably get going."

Rob's face falls. I take a deep breath, hoping we can put this all past us. But then I almost see the wheels in his head start to turn. I watch the idea travel from his brain down to his lips, and I jump in before he can even suggest it.

"My mom has such a hard time around the holidays ever since my dad died. This family time is so important."

He nods, understanding. He doesn't know my dad's been gone for nine years. And isn't that the point? How did we go from hooking up to I think we should be together? When did that shift for him? I'm usually so good at cutting things off before we even need to reach this awkward conversation. I thought I was sending the right message by explicitly not inviting him home with me, but I guess the signals got crossed. How did I miss it?

I've been distracted with this trip home, sure, but I should have seen the signs. I shouldn't have had to play the Dead Dad card. Though, to be fair, my dad would have honestly loved to be the excuse for me to not force this asshat upon my poor mother. You never brought anyone home while I was alive. Why start now? He would have gotten a real kick out of it.

Sometimes, on the rare occasion when I catch myself actually starting to fall for someone, I feel a little hitch in my heart, realizing my dad will never know the person I end up with. It's dumb, but sometimes that's enough to snap me out of whatever love haze I've been in.

I roll off Rob's bed, gathering my clothes, and silently head into the bathroom, making a mental note to pick up some cranberry pills on my way home, just in case.


After stopping at Duane Reade, I walk home, the cold December air biting my lips more raw than Rob had. I never should have made the detour to Rob’s house on my last night in town. I should have known better. Now I’ve got this terribly inconvenient be my girlfriend situation hanging over my head. I should have just stayed in and packed for the trip. Stupid hormones.

I reach my building, making one last stop at the Middle Eastern pastry shop next door, and blessing this city that they're still open after eleven p.m. Talha, who runs the shop, looks up and smiles at me.

"I did not know if I would see you before the New Year," he says, his graying hair frizzed out from a long day.

"Come on, I had to do one last pick up."

Talha nods, folding together a white cardboard box. He begins loading pistachio baklava inside.

"Can I get some kunefe too?" I ask, smiling angelically. "One hard, one soft?"

Talha closes up the box. I leave the cash on top of the glass counter, already knowing the familiar total, and wanting to leave before he tries to give me any change. When his sons are working, he lets them take tips, but he always refuses mine.

"See you soon!" I call out behind me as I leave, stopping ten feet later to fiddle with the glass door to my sad, yellowing building, barely renovated since it was built in 1926. I see one of my roommates, Aya, smoking a joint up on the fire escape. No one has ever looked as glamorous and as New York as Aya in this moment, her long black hair cascading over one shoulder as she leans an arm on the wrought-iron railing. We share a wave as I jiggle the handle with my key upside down, and then I burst inside the building.

I trudge up the five flights of steep stairs to my apartment, thighs already sore from the night's earlier activities. I open the door to my other roommate, Luisa, and her boyfriend, Michael, cooking a stir-fry in the kitchen.

"You hungry?" Luisa asks, adding a hefty flick of soy sauce into the pan. "I made too much."

"Always," I reply, giving Michael a wave as I put the box of pastries on the counter. "I brought treats."

"Oh, thank God." Luisa quickly hands Michael the wooden spoon to stir while she goes to inspect my haul. She pulls her dark, thick hair up into a short ponytail, brushing her knuckles over her widow's peak twice, an unconscious habit.

"I even got the hard kunefe, just for you."

"What am I going to do without you?" Luisa asks, giving my arm a squeeze.

"It's only a few days. And the kitchen will be so much cleaner."

Luisa sighs. I'm the messy one in our apartment, but at least I'm self-aware.

I fill a tall glass of water, then dig through the Duane Reade bag, pulling out the box of cranberry pills.

"Oh no," Michael says as I push two red pills out of the foil packet.

Luisa rolls her eyes. "Oh, Rob."

I shrug as I toss the pills back, chugging the entire glass. "Can't take any chances. No one wants another UTI debacle."

"No one wants to hear about your urinary tract, Nor," Luisa replies as she takes a forkful of kunefe.

"I'm going to hop in the shower, but save me a plate," I say, taking the opportunity while the bathroom is free to wash all of Rob right off me.

Luisa and I became friends at my first job out of college. We were both working as assistants at a digital marketing company and bonded quickly over the low pay and generally terrible environment. While Luisa found her way to a design agency, I suffered through years of stagnancy and half steps in the right direction, only getting promoted to a copywriter position this fall, four years later. But Luisa and I stayed friends, and we've lived together for the last two years.

I'm sure Luisa has many complaints about me as a roommate, but my only qualm with her is her and Michael's excessive shower use, so I jump at the opportunity to get in there before they take it over as they do every morning and night for an hour. I don't mind too much, especially when they feed me at all odd hours of the night, but I've also learned to be strategic about my bathroom time.

I take a long shower, knowing that it's already almost midnight and there's no chance I will get to shower again in the morning before my flight. Afterward, I collect my toiletries, tossing them on my bed next to the empty purple suitcase. I really did not plan this right at all. I emerge briefly in sweats to collect the bowl of food Luisa left. Aya has joined them at the tiny dining room table we found by the subway when we first moved in.

We met Aya through an online post when our last roommate decided the city wasn't for her and moved back to Jersey. Aya's lived here for almost a year and we still barely know anything about her. She's very fun to be around, but Luisa and I have an ongoing game of who can get even the tiniest bit of personal information from her. One time, she mentioned her brother was in a K-pop group and I had a fucking field day, but that's the most we've ever learned.

I take the bowl into my room (another pet peeve of Luisa's) and shove a huge piece of broccoli into my mouth as I start to pull sweaters out of my closet and ram them into the suitcase. I no longer have time to be discerning. I'd put off packing this long with the hopes that work or something else would come up, and I'd have an excuse to cancel another trip home like I did at Thanksgiving.

My phone pings with an email, and I swipe open the notification. It's a reminder to respond to the annual class reunion bar night e-vite. I sigh. I truly have no interest in going, but I click on the link and scroll down to the attendees.

I would be so very happy to never be in the same room, or building, or frankly, zip code as most of my former classmates ever again, for the rest of my life. I scroll past the sea of exclamations claiming Absolutely cannot wait!!! and I am SO there!!! My eyes roll so hard that it feels like I really should have had an audience for that.

I scan through the rest of the Yes, No, and Maybe columns, searching for his name. Give me this one win, I think, as I reach the Not Replied column. There he is.

Henry Cole.

Maybe I'll have garnered enough goodwill from finally going home that I'll at least be spared from seeing him. I click Maybe, and am about to go back to packing when the phone buzzes again in my hand.

It's Frankie Carlisle, FaceTiming me. I answer to her screaming, "You're going!" Frankie's platinum blonde hair shakes at me with joy, grazing her collarbones, as she cackles at me over the phone, her usual perma-frown nowhere in sight.

"That was fast," I laugh, relishing the sight of my best friend's face.

"I get the notification emails when people respond," she explains, and I see her collapse onto her charcoal-colored comforter. "That's what happens when you organize the whole damn thing." Frankie is an event planner and may or may not have been being taken advantage of by our alumni committee. I think she's getting paid at least?

I sigh, settling onto the corner of my own bed, the only spot that hasn't been taken over by stuff.

"You're going to make me go, aren't you?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"Nor, I'm completely slammed with holiday parties for the next two days. Then it's the reunion, and then I leave on the cruise with my parents. This is the only chance we'll have to see each other. It's been two years. It's getting ridiculous."

"You're the only person in the world I would suffer through this night for," I say.

"I really am," my forever best friend replies. "Who knows, it might even be fun. I've put a lot of work into making sure it'll be the best time possible. And you know I hate almost everything, so I mean it."

"Fine," I say, leaning back on my pillow. "But I'm not changing my RSVP. I need to maintain the air of mystery."

"For whom?" Frankie snorts, her orange tabby cat, Monsieur, crawling briefly into frame.

"I don't know! For my own dignity! I have such little dignity when it comes to high school, Frankie. You know this."

"Norah, you've had the biggest glow-up I've ever seen IRL. Show it off a little."

I roll my eyes, but she's gotten me to smile.

"I suggest you pack that teal sweater you sent me pics of from your thrifting haul."

That's actually not a bad idea. I stand up and pull the oversized teal sweater off its hanger, tossing it into the suitcase.

"Wait, are you only packing now? It's after midnight your time."

"Frankie, it's me."

"I guess some things don't change. Have a safe flight. I'll see you at the reunion," Frankie says, emphasizing those last few words with her dark brows.

I blow her a kiss and hang up.

Off Frankie's encouragement, I add my favorite going-out jeans that are not meant for sitting. If I have to see a bunch of people who ruined my life, I can at least look hot and confident while doing so.

Chapter 2

As I sit squished into the middle seat on this completely full flight, I'm regretting every decision that brought me to this moment as the men on either side of me stake claim to their respective armrests. Every delay in purchasing tickets home for the holidays. Every time I thought Oh, it'd be nice to be back with Mom and Hannah. Every nagging text from Frankie, begging me to come to the reunion bar night she'd so meticulously planned.