Page 23 of Can't Get Enough

I often wonder if I hadn’t met Zere so soon after my mother died, would we have lasted as long as we did? I was vulnerable and needed a distraction. Needed companionship. A friend. Zere was all that, and I’ll always appreciate it. My father and I were both so steeped in sorrow. I found something… someone to shift my focus to. Pop didn’t have that. I didn’t mean to remind him of that time. Though, who am I kidding? If a man’s heart is carved out of his chest, do you have to remind him he’s missing a vital organ?

“You still seeing the grief counselor?” I venture, kicking myself for steering the conversation in this direction. It’s not that we never talk about my mom dying, but grief is a wave, washing in and washing out. Sometimes calm, and others a riptide. I’ve seen it take my dad under before.

“Occasionally.” He grunts. “What they gon’ do for me? Can’t bring Priscilla back. I do appreciate a place to talk, perspective, all that. It’s not useless. It just doesn’t change the fact that the person I loved more than anything is gone.”

My family has grieved a lot over the last few years. It was slow with my grandfather, losing bits of him along the way until one day he was gone completely. There was admittedly some relief with his passing. Relief for my grandfather, who would never have chosen the existence Alzheimer’s left him with, and for my mother, who absorbed the brunt of his care. Losing my mother was different. Like a thread ripped from a quilt that instantly unravels. She held our family together, and for awhile my father and I both floundered. My therapist suggested I find something to focus on; a goal. You ain’t gotta tell me twice. If there’s one thing I love, it’s something to accomplish.

“Did I tell you how close we are to sealing the deal with the Vipers?” I ask him, deliberately pivoting from the conversation’s sad direction.

“You lying.” Pop’s voice immediately brightens, and even though I can’t see him, in my mind’s eye, he leans forward with a familiar eagerness only basketball elicits.

“Yeah. If all goes well, I’ll have a controlling interest, but AJ will maintain a minority ownership and his seat on the board of directors. He wouldn’t budge on those conditions.”

“Too bad you still have to work with him,” Dad grumbles. “He’s an asshole. His daddy was an asshole.”

“I wish Andrew Senior were still around to see them lose this team,” I say, flecks of bitterness in the words.

“Andy Senior wasn’t my favorite person, but it was Jerry Keys who blackballed me.” The annoyance in Pop’s voice reaches through the phone. “That motherfucker blocked me at every turn.”

“Had they hired you as the Vipers’ head coach, they’d have at least one championship. Everybody knows that and no one ever did anything about it.”

“Just my luck my archrival became one of the most powerful men in the league.” I can almost hear my father’s shrug of resignation. “Jerry was one of the commissioner’s closest advisers, and he always made it clear that anyone who helped me would be on his shit list.”

My teeth clench at the memory of Pop being passed over time and again, job after job that he was qualified for, but never hired. Stuck as an assistant, but never given the chance to lead a team. I can’t get those years back, can’t make it right, but I can make him feel better. Not just about the blocked ambitions in his coaching career, but maybe ease some of the loss and grief he hasn’t been able to release. I hope having this deal to focus on and then the endeavor of helping to shape the team will help.

“If I could get rid of AJ altogether, believe me I would,” I tell Pop. “But this has been his family’s team for so long. He’s for damn sure not letting it go.”

“Andy Senior would roll over in his grave,” my father chuckles. “A Black man owning his family’s team? Unbelievable.”

“I still can’t quite believe it myself, that I can actually pull this off.”

“Why you surprised? All you’ve accomplished, the money you got when you sold True Playahs, and you didn’t think you could buy the Vipers?”

“This shit is not just money. Some things you can’t even buy your way into. You and I know owning a professional team is often one of them.”

“When you have the capital and they don’t, things change. They need the investment.”

“They also need the leadership,” I say. “I hope you’ll help us with that.”

My father releases a sigh. “I’m an old man. What do I know anymore?”

“Pop, you’re sixty years old. Younger than half the men running things and owning teams in this league. And all my life I’ve heard you complaining the Vipers’ front office couldn’t lead a fly to a pile of shit.”

His laughter booms over the phone, drawing a smile from me in reply. “Ain’t that the truth, though? Okay. You buy your team, and we’ll see.”

“I’m working on it.”

A noise at the door distracts me. I turn to grin at my assistant standing there with his iPad, obviously ready to work.

“Pop, I gotta go,” I tell him, closing the door to the balcony and walking past Bolt out into the hall. He follows, our quiet footfalls the only sound in the house. “Bolt’s here to make me do some work.”

“Tell that assistant of yours to take it easy on you,” Pop laughs.

I glance over my shoulder, and Bolt is hot on my heels, a stern look on his face like we’re about to get down to some real business.

“Not a chance,” I say. “He’s ready to get started. You know how he is.”

“Well, I’ll let you go…” Pop pauses. “You sure you’re—”

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