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By Sade Josephine

When Angelo Davis was growing up in Queens, helping his dad hide the vodka bottles, he wouldnt have imagined someday hed be working as a talent agent and living in a condo in Los Angeles, California.

Davis life is in a bit of an upheaval. He never sees his husband of seven years; his younger, teen-aged brother, Michael, has come to stay with him; and hes guardian and agent of seventeen-year-old, multi-talented celebrity, Reggie Simone.

Reggie lives with three of her best friends, and shes experiencing some controversy of her own when her sexuality gets exploited to the public for a reason she may or may not regret. Angelo cant help but reflect on the days he was struggling with his own sexuality.

Set in Los Angeles fast-paced entertainment industry, this novel for young adults shares a story of fame, family dynamics, and shifting priorities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Feb 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480859616

Sade Josephine

Sade Corneille is a seventeen-year-old young adult fiction author who considers herself an introvert and part-time extrovert. She currently lives with her family in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.

Book preview

One

Angelo

When I was eleven, my ADHD was pretty bad, ruining my social life completely. I hadn’t had any friends to talk to about my life before the age of eleven, because I was an odd kid. The minute I was born, I was automatically a grown man. Sounds funny, but it’s true; I had a lot of responsibility. My father had me at seventeen, which meant he was terrified of me.

I had no control over my emotions as a baby. I cried a lot, but I could tell that my dad didn’t know what the hell he was doing whenever it came to anything we did together, so I tried to be easy on him. So in a way, I had to not be such a kid and to help him when it came to taking care of me.

When I was five years old, kids were trying to learn how to ride bikes. Meanwhile, I was busy trying to help my dad hide vodka bottles from his mom—my grandma—under the TV set. And when I was eight, I helped him brush his teeth when he came home drunk. My dad was the funniest guy in the world to me then. This all probably appears problematic, but it happened already, so what are you gonna do? (This is a phrase I’ve grown attached to.)

Naturally, I was ready for high school. I loved high school. Basketball was my life and helped me meet Leo. I was around Leo so much, my dad started getting mad at me when my excuses for where I was going all the time starting getting really pathetic. My brother hated it too. He hated being left out of things. My little brother’s weird—but a good weird.

I married Leo when I was twenty-three years old. I invited all my friends and family, but I only remember Leo being there that day.

I thought about all this on the elevator ride up to my condo in Los Angeles, California. Damn, I never thought I’d say a sentence like that. I used to live in Queens and thought that one day I could possibly end up residing in a brownstone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

When I stepped out of the elevator, I saw my brother, a teenage boy with mocha skin, freckles dancing on his nose, and flailing curly strands of matching brown hair. He wore a green plaid vest over a blue button-down shirt, dress pants, and dirty white Converses. He looked like a Target model. His arms were filled with notebooks, and he had a black book bag on his back. He was standing in the hallway, conversing with a dark-skinned man from inside his condo. The man was dressed in a Golden State Warriors jersey and basketball shorts. He looked completely unamused by my brother’s presence, but he nodded along to what my brother was saying regardless. I had forgotten it was Leo’s day off.

Mickey?

Mickey turned to face me. He had blue streaks of paint under his eyes. Always trying to be original, I thought.

Hey, Mickey said. He gave an awkward wave. Sorry, I think I knocked on your neighbor’s door by accident. I thought you said 142.

This isn’t my neighbor, I said. This is, uh, Leo.

Mickey parted his lips. Ohh, yeah. He turned and shook his hand. Hey, Leo.

Hi, Leo said.

I laughed as I eyed Mickey’s bag. That’s all you packed?

The rest of it’s in my car. He has a car already?

Um. Leo pointed his index finger at me. I need to talk to you.

Okay. Mickey, you can head inside.

All right. Mickey complied.

Leo closed the door behind him and stared down at me. Michael’s staying here?

Yeah.

Leo chuckled and rubbed the bridge of his nose. You didn’t think to clarify this with me?

I just did, I said, grinning. I don’t have a choice, anyway.

What happened to your grandmother taking care of him?

She’s tired. She’s eighty.

Leo raised his hand up. Grandmas love kids.

I scrunched my nose up in distaste. Leo? Are you serious?

Yes! You’re never here, so why do you care? I thought to myself. You won’t even know he’s here. Besides, he’s just like me. You like me, right?

Angelo. I guess not. I have to go to a conference in the morning. I didn’t even know what his job was, to be honest. I think he worked in real estate. I liked to pretend he was a spy, though.

Okay? And?

I can’t babysit. I’m not doing it. I don’t like children.

He’s not a child. He’s seventeen. I met you at seventeen, and we were fine.

Angelo, he growled. Who’s driving him to school? Who’s making him breakfast? Who’s gonna buy him new clothes?

Me. I flicked his shoulder before heading inside. Leo angrily took off to his room like a five-year-old.

Wow … this place is pretty big. And the view is insane. Mickey eyed a Las Vegas snow globe on the mantelpiece. He shook it and watched the snow fall around a picture of Leo, me, and a cross-dressing stripper. You did good for yourself.

Thanks, I said. I took the snow globe out of his hands and spun it to face the opposite way.

Your, uh, boyfriend … He jerked his thumb upstairs to where Leo had gone. He’s real mad at me, ain’t he?

I just didn’t tell him you were coming, that’s all. And he’s not my boyfriend, really.

Oh. Mickey covered his mouth. I thought you two were still gay.

I resisted an eye roll. Oh, we are. We’re married.

Wow, he said, sounding kind of disheartened. He’d missed a lot of the good things that had happened to me. Good for you, man. You got any kids too?

No. Well, that’s iffy now.

Oh, no, I-I won’t be like a hassle or anything, I swear.

I’m sure you won’t be, I said, lying to myself.

Yeah, but you don’t really know me.

I chuckled. What do you mean?

I’ve changed a lot, I think.

The voice inside my head was astounded. How? Are you kidding me? Nothing has changed at all! Look at you! Right. So your room is next to the guest room upstairs.

How do I know which one’s mine and which one’s the guest room?

Your room is the bigger one, but you can pick and choose.

Sweet. He headed upstairs. He’s going to pick the smaller one; I just know it. He stopped at the top and looked down at me. I’m kind of hungry.

Oh, I just ate, but I guess you and I can go out to eat something if you want.

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So, Angelo, what is it that you do now? Mickey asked, nearly jumping in his seat. Dad said you were a pimp.

We had settled on an IHOP a few minutes outside downtown LA. It was packed with a diverse group of people. While we had to wait for a free table, I had to pretend like no one was staring at my brother like he was psychotic, especially the Chinese baby wearing a Daddy’s girl bib wrapped tightly around her neck. I hadn’t been to the International House of Pancakes in a while.

I narrowed my eyes. A pimp?

He says you promote teenage girls.

Okay, no. Only one teenager. I’m a talent agent.

Mickey nodded. You’re kind of a pimp, but without the sex part.

Please don’t say that word.

He frowned down at his food. What word?

"The S-word."

What, sex?

Stop.

Mickey chuckled. I’ve had sex. I can say the word.

My eyes widened. What? You’ve had sex?

Yeah? He nodded with furrowed eyebrows. He took another bite of his eggs.

There’s no way. I drummed my fingers against the tabletop, trying to distract myself from asking more about it. How’s school?

Could do without it.

How are your grades?

Straight As.

Really? That’s great.

I know. I was lying, but can you imagine?

No. I let out an awkward laugh. Yeah. You almost had me there.

Mickey beamed and dug into his eggs. I like your hair, he mentioned.

I felt my head reflexively. I played with the end of my shaggy midnight hair pushed off my face by my light brown sunglasses. Thanks.

It’s unique. I’ve never seen anyone with black hair grow it out so long.

Do you have a girlfriend? I nearly blurted out.

Mickey gave a weak smile. He shook his head. No. I’m not into that commitment thing—no offense. It works for you and Leo, I bet. How long have you two been married?

Seven years now? I asked myself. Yeah, seven years.

Wow.

He’s known you since you were a baby.

Dad told me that.

Yeah, you got jealous whenever Leo came over and he would want to hang out with me instead of you.

Really?

Yeah, you liked my boyfriend.

Mickey snorted. He shook his curly head of hair from side to side again. Keeping a prominent smile on his face as he ate his food, he tried to avoid my persistent stare.

What? I asked.

I was just thinking. It’s random. You’re kinda like an undercover black man. You look … white. You look white. He drank his orange juice.

Oh. But I’m not.

I know. Mickey laughed and waved it off. Let’s just talk about something else. I was just thinking to myself. I don’t want to get into it.

Okay, I said, because neither did I. Play any sports?

Football. Linebacker.

Nice. I played basketball.

Point guard. I know.

Well, did you know Leo was point guard too when he was on his team?

No. Is that how you guys met?

I laughed. Yeah. We met by getting into a nasty fight with one another.

Ayyy, you beat a guy up? Mickey asked cheerfully. His smile dissipated. Never mind—it doesn’t really count if you marry him afterward.

I nodded. I used to get into a lot of fights at that time, actually. Which was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Leo said something to me, and it set me off. It was so stupid. And now that we’re married, everything he said back then, I have secondhand embarrassment for now.

What’d he say? Mickey asked.

I immediately became lost in a reverie, recalling that the sound of squeaky sneakers against the floor, after the loud buzzer had rung, scratched at my ears. Another game lost by the boys in the bright white uniforms. A boy with cornrows, who had tried blocking my last shot, patted my back roughly. With a playful grin, he said, White men can’t jump.

Instantaneously, I pushed him down with a force I hadn’t known I was capable of. He kicked me roughly in the shin, sending me to the floor. He climbed on top of me and punched me squarely in my jaw. I clawed at his face, which only ignited his desire to hurt me even more. The referee blew the whistle as my teammates tried breaking us apart. My coach lifted my small body off the ground. He tugged the back of my sweaty red and black jersey and growled into my ear. Bench. Now.

I shrugged him off and took a seat on the silver bleachers.

The boy was seated on the other side of the gymnasium. He snarled over at me from his seat and discreetly stuck the middle finger up in my direction.

I rose from the bleachers to make my way over to him. The coach lifted me up like a feather, sitting me back down. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Davis?

That kid keeps fucking with me, I said, realizing that was the first time I’d ever sworn in an adult’s presence.

That’s the point. He’s trying to get you to lose. Ignore him!

But I couldn’t ignore him. I couldn’t catch a break from that kid. The next time I saw him, he was wearing a baby blue do-rag over his head. He had that same cocky smile plastered on his face while I was practicing alone on the basketball court near my house. Well, if it isn’t Larry Bird. He mocked my jump shot. Laughter bubbled out of him, the type of laugh that resembled what you’d hear from some kind of archvillain.

Fuck off.

Fuck off, he mimicked in a high-pitched voice.

As I was going to shoot, the boy took the basketball out of my hands. You’re really bad at basketball, white boy. He spun the basketball on a single finger.

Don’t call me that. Give me the ball.

Why not, white boy?

You know I can play. You saw me win the game yesterday.

That must’ve been a lucky shot. I watched the baby blue do-rag float in the wind like an ocean wave. Your form is sad, and your height needs some work done.

"Your face needs some work