Love is a Contact Sport

Chapter One

Renny

“What do you mean they’re not buying my next novel?”

I was sitting inside my ten-year-old Cadillac Escalade in the parking structure at the university campus near downtown Detroit.

It was raining, a spontaneous Michigan June summer storm out of nowhere.

Because I’d been delaying getting my windshield wipers replaced, I needed to sit out the rain before trying to get on the Lodge Freeway to drive home or elsewhere.

That’s when Rashid, my literary agent, called.

This was certainly not the day I wanted or expected.

An hour earlier, I’d been given notice by Human Resources that come fall semester, I’d no longer be teaching composition or creative writing classes in the English department.

At the end of the month and end of the fiscal year, I’d be “non-retained” by the university, a fancy word for getting laid off.

Something about a decline in enrollment, budget cuts, and the need to scale back to reflect the current and projected size of the campus population.

I understood this was the reality for any instructor who wasn’t represented by a labor union or on the tenure track to permanent university employment.

Still, silly me, I’d thought English was part of the graduation plan for most, if not all, undergraduates, and that my employment on campus would always be a sure thing.

Until I realized after a couple years into this gig adjuncts were lower on the ladder of academia, though adjuncts were in the classroom and with students more than tenure-track colleagues.

Like most authors who hadn’t been discovered by Oprah, Reese, RuPaul, or Jenna, I needed the day job at the university to take care of my monthly bills and to fund my writer’s life and expenses.

Though people believed author advances were extravagant, many didn’t realize the hidden costs of author life—the costs of ordering books from the publisher for events, sending out books and swag, updating websites and hiring social media assistants, setting aside enough taxes from advances and royalties, and traveling across the country to book conferences to keep our names in front of readers and influencers, which kept my credit cards near their limits. Even with twelve books under my belt.

Rashid’s call, on the same day as my layoff, I was not expecting.

“Something about you’re not selling as you once did, Renny.” Rashid’s voice boomed out of the car speaker. “What’s the phrase they used? ‘Underwhelming sales and an uninspiring market for your kind of novels.’ ”

“Well, shit,” I said while multitasking and reading the notification letter from the university. “They don’t mince words.”

“We can exercise the contract’s clause and shop it around to other houses now,” Rashid said. “I’m sure a smaller house may want you. Or we can brainstorm a career shift. Maybe consider something different from your backlist.”

“I write romance, Rashid. That’s all I know,” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. “Romance is what keeps the lights on in publishing. Everyone knows that.”

“You write about Black and gay men.”

“And?”

“I mean, ever since E. Lynn Harris passed, and you kinda tried to fill the void, there’s a lot of newer and younger authors out there.”

“I’m forty-three. Not dead.”

“But you are what we call midlist now. Does anyone even TikTok or Bookstagram you?”

“Okay. I’m not at the top of the lists like I used to be. I still write smart, fun, and funny novels. At least, I think.”

“Well, the whole own voice thing,” Rashid said, pausing a beat.

As a New Yorker, he usually wasn’t one to deliberate on what or how he said things.

“In this current climate, people are tired of hearing the own voice thing when it comes to M/M and romance in general. They just don’t want all the smarts and politics. ”

“Who is ‘they’? And who is tired of own voices? I’m not. My readers are not. Scholars are not. Minoritized people who get researched and written about are not.”

Rashid laughed. Sarcasm?

“You and that mouth are gonna keep getting you in trouble, Renny,” Rashid said.

“You know what I’m talking about. You’re writing romance novels, not academic treatises.

I mean, you went viral, but it didn’t help book sales, after those comments you made on that queer book con panel this spring.

The BookTok community took offense when you said who should and should not be writing Black characters or queer characters or M/M romance. ”

“Rashid, we’re both Black. You can tell me which BookTok folks took offense. I can tell you it wasn’t the Black ones,” I said.

“No doubt. But your publisher noticed. And that’s why we’re in this situation now where I can’t sell your latest novel.

Plus, the way you read avid M/M romance readers for not supporting the women writing sapphic romance.

Readers don’t want to think about possibly being sexist or racist, even if they are. ”

“Well, they should. Reading is political. And I stand on own voices. I said the same thing on panels at the Black-focused romance and bookfests, and no one made a deal out of it there. Only at the queer romance conferences that I attended. Now, you tell me what that says about the state of queer romance.”

“It says we’re in a time and climate where you might want to consider your words a little more carefully. Maybe cut the women and femmes writing M/M romance a little slack. Maybe write a Black character falling in love with someone who’s not Black. Maybe tone down the Black a little bit.”

“Like they made changing my name from Larenz to Renny a condition of my first book contract?”

“Don’t be so sensitive. It’s just business.”

“Are you deliberately trying to hurt my little author feelings, Rashid? The Black guys I write about are the prize. They’re not looking for a prize or for validation from a partner from another community.”

“Understood.”

“Good.”

I knew the delicate dance of the author and agent business relationship.

Though Rashid technically worked for me, I knew I was at the mercy of the amount of work he did on my behalf with my publisher or other publishers.

I thought we’d put our contentious moments behind us, when he started up again.

“And now there’s all the indie authors competing with trad authors like you, the people writing male-male with the straight woman’s gaze at the forefront, and the folks writing four or five or more books a year,” Rashid said.

“This might be a time to change it up a little. Twelve novels in fifteen years is a lot to be proud of, and we’ve made some good money together over the years, but maybe you’re aging out of the marketplace now. ”

A little heated, I was not going to let Rashid get the last word.

“Sorry if I don’t use AI to write my novels or to do my book covers.

And I keep a day job. I can’t churn out books like authors who use online assistance or don’t have a nine-to-five.

Well, maybe now I can. I just got let go from the university right before you called. ”

“Oh, shit, sorry to rain on your parade like that, Renny,” Rashid said.

I’m sure he had no idea I was staring out into a rainstorm, him being in NYC and me being near downtown Detroit.

“Look, you got decent royalties coming in from your backlist, so I’m not dropping you like some other literary agents would.

Let’s set up a call in a few weeks to discuss next steps.

We’ll figure out how to get Renny Ross back on top… or at least back to the middle.”

“Okay, just let me know when.”

And then I heard silence on the other end. I knew Rashid had more lucrative and maybe younger clients who were the darlings of book influencers and readers, so I didn’t take it personally.

An hour later, after the rain subsided, I parked my SUV in one of the guest parking spots in the rear part of my subdivision.

I didn’t want Antoine to know I was home.

I was planning to avoid him for a few hours by catching a rideshare to one of the gay bars in Ferndale.

Just wanted a couple glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, alone, but with people around me and a few familiar happy hour faces who were not Antoine.

And I didn’t want to risk getting a speeding ticket or more from the radar happy police officers in Oak Park while driving on Nine Mile from Southfield to Ferndale and back.

I was getting too old for this.

Another dead-end relationship—this time with Antoine, but fill in the blank with any of the others—that went from instant attraction, then to like, then to love, then to thinking I was in love, then to being annoyed, then to resentment, then to dislike, then to disgust, then to feeling numb and wanting out in the span of a few months or less than a year.

I was getting too old for this.

Heading to a bar after work to meet up and drink with bar acquaintances just to avoid going home. Seeking validation from strangers on apps or in bars for being a throat goat.

I was getting too old for this.

Avoiding my condo, the cute recently constructed tri-level in Southfield, because Antoine would be there when I got home from teaching on campus or writing in some coffeehouse space.

There , on the living room sofa playing video games or watching some reality television show.

There , with the day’s recycling or trash overflowing in the kitchen, but jumping up and saying, “Oh, I was about to take it out,” when I started to do it myself.

There , with baskets of laundry that could have gotten done during a day of nothing to do and all day to do it.

There , giving me excuse after excuse as to why every opportunity I got for him through acquaintances and others didn’t work out yet again.

Just. There.

I was too old for this.

Another failed romantic relationship, a secret I kept from the public, my family, and my readers.

I was too old and too smart for this.