Chapter 31 – Brianna #2
“And I’m sorry I made the decisions that I did.
I know it changed your life. I just…” He trails off, then continues with quiet resolve.
“Once I realized there was more to basketball, it was too late to come back from pushing your mother and you away, so my focused shifted. I was determined to be the best at the sport and invest everything I made wisely. I knew one day everything I had earned I’d give to you, even if you didn’t want a relationship with me.
I’ve been building toward that new dream ever since. ”
I draw in a sharp breath.
“I guess I’m hoping that now, as adults, we can try to have some kind of relationship.
I know I don’t deserve that.” He leans closer.
“Trust me, Brianna, I know I don’t deserve anything from you.
But I want you to know that I never stopped thinking about you.
I always asked about you. I would check in with your mom over the years, send gifts for birthdays and holidays.
I told her to say they were from her. I didn’t want to create more problems for you both.
I just hoped that one day we’d be able to have this conversation. ”
When he pauses, I realize I haven't taken another bite. My fork is hovering somewhere in the air, and I have no idea how long it's been there.
He’d reached out? I had no idea.
I never suspected that some of the gifts my mother had given me came from him.
Sure, it makes sense now. We didn't have much money growing up.
But to hear that he'd been checking in with her, all this time, and she never once said anything?
And the Mayhem, his NBA career, everything he'd been quietly building, he'd done it with me in mind? That’s what’s surprising.
“I didn’t want to confuse you,” he says.
“Or give you false hope. My career was everything to me. Too much. It consumed me. It consumed everything. It was all I wanted to do. I couldn’t give anything to anyone else, which is why I haven’t married or been in a serious relationship since your mother. ”
He shakes his head again and leans back in his chair like the memories are heavy in his body.
“It didn’t feel fair to you or her. Maybe I’ll be able to explain better someday.
I just hope you see this is not me making excuses for the past but apologizing.
I hope you hear my regret, even if you don’t want to accept it. ”
I nod, encouraging him to keep going.
“I grew up with nothing. Dirt-poor. One of five kids in a two-bedroom apartment with roaches and broken windows and a mom who was always working. Basketball was my lifeline. My ticket out. I clung to it like a lifeboat. I had to. And when I finally made it, I couldn’t let go. Not even when I should’ve.”
"I understand what it's like to hold on to something past the point you should."
I do. I spent years with my ex-boyfriend doing exactly that. Not because it was right or because I was happy, but because it was comfortable. He was all I'd ever known, and known felt safer than the alternative, even when I could feel myself shrinking inside the relationship.
He pauses again, jaw tightening slightly.
“When I retired, I couldn’t even look at a basketball.
Couldn’t pick one up. I had this house down in Florida with a court in the backyard and I had diggers come in and destroy the whole thing.
It had taken so much out of me. At the same time, the sport gave me everything.
And when I finally stepped away, I didn’t know who I was without it because I’d built nothing permanent.
Basketball was never going to be permanent. A family would have been.”
He glances toward the glass case on the far wall—framed Mayhem memorabilia beside old NBA jerseys with the name King on the back.
I’ve worked with enough athletes to know that what he’s saying is true.
Athletes who play at this level often lose their identity in the sport and when it’s taken from them, or they’re forced to retire before they’re ready, they spiral.
It’s why management encourages them to invest in hobbies outside of the sport.
Non-profit work, families, all of it can help their transition to retirement.
“That’s why I started looking into other sports. Hockey was never my world, but I saw something in the Mayhem. They’d won a Stanley, but the team needed vision. Energy. A facelift. I saw the potential, and I’ve poured a large chunk of my savings into turning the team around.”
He says it like the investment is nothing.
Like he didn’t completely transform this place.
But I’ve seen what he’s done. The strategy behind every new hire.
The way he’s recruited fresh talent, fostered culture, rebuilt the brand from the inside out.
He may not have played hockey, but he gets what it takes to transform a team and make it elite.
He’s a true athlete-owner. And it’s paid off in the dollar signs behind his net worth.
Now, the Mayhem is thriving and everyone in the building knows it.
“Thank you for sharing that with me. That was… a lot.”
He gives me a nod. “Thank you for listening, and for not storming out.”
I laugh. “Storming out isn’t really my style.”
“It wasn’t your mother’s either. I don’t think we ever got in a real fight.”
That makes me smile. “Everything you shared… it helps me understand you better, and the young man who made the decision to leave. The Mayhem is better off with you leading it.”
He picks up his bowl again. “I know hockey wasn’t your sport, but I’m so glad you’ve given it a chance so that we could have this conversation.”
"Me too," I say, and I mean it.
Who knows if we’d ever gotten here without the internship last fall.
Without the Mayhem pulling us into the same orbit.
But we're here now, and for the first time I feel like I understand who Caleb actually is—not the absence I grew up with, not the silence my mother never fully explained or understood herself, but the person sitting across from me trying to find his words and repair a relationship.
Yes, it doesn't undo the lost time. It doesn't touch the years I spent wondering why my dad left, or the nights I cried myself to sleep without an answer.
But it's something. And something has to start somewhere.
Every new relationship has a beginning. This is just ours.
“Long term, where would you like to end up? Selfishly, I’d love to keep you with the Mayhem, but I have connections in almost every professional league.”
Hockey was never the plan. I always thought I’d end up working in baseball, maybe football—somewhere warm, somewhere familiar.
But hockey has grown on me and Seth’s grown on me.
The tortured player I can’t stop thinking about that’s currently downstairs, training for his next home game this weekend.
The one who I emailed HR about, and then never responded to the paperwork because I knew I needed this conversation first.
“I’m not sure,” I admit honestly. “Still figuring it out.”
He nods, like he respects that answer more than a definitive one. “Well, wherever you go next, whatever you decide, I’ll support you if you want me to. And I won’t push to keep you here. I just… I’m grateful I get to have you here for a little while.”
I glance down at the spread on the desk, then out the window where the city hums beneath a late, summer sun.
My throat tightens as I look back at him—this man who, for so long, was just a name.
A myth. A shadow in the corner of my life.
And now here he is. Sitting across from me.
Talking. Explaining. Taking ownership. Apologizing.
“Thank you.”
Sure, this isn’t how I used to imagine getting to know my dad.
It’s not the version I romanticized as a kid, some perfect reunion full of miscommunication and fairy tale moments where he says something like I never even knew you existed; that’s why I wasn’t there, but life isn’t perfect.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t beauty in this conversation, it just means that it’s different. That real life is not always perfect.