Page 20 of Trick or Tease

GARRETT

I poured myself another finger of Dad’s cheap scotch and grimaced as it burned down my throat. The stuff tasted like paint thinner compared to the eighteen-year-old Macallan I kept in my apartment, but it was doing the job of keeping me sane while I worked through Billy’s legal nightmare.

The farm’s little office was cramped and outdated, with a desk that had probably been here since the eighties and a filing system that seemed to consist of shoving important papers into whatever drawer was handy.

My dad and computers were apparently not a thing. I knew he liked ledgers and shit, but I would have thought Billy would modernize stuff. There was a computer program with their books but it hadn’t been updated in almost a year.

They needed an accountant, a housekeeper, and maybe a priest to pray for a miracle.

I had managed to sort through the income and expenses but was horrified when I realized pumpkin operation was still operating under the family name. Like they were just a couple of casual sellers and not an actual business.

I’d been hunched over my laptop for three hours, drafting incorporation documents and researching liability insurance requirements for agritourism operations in New York State.

The more I dug into it, the more worried I became. It was a fucking catastrophe waiting to happen.

Billy appeared in the doorway with a sandwich and a beer, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. “How’s it going, nerd?”

“It’s going terribly,” I said, not looking up from my screen. “Do you realize you’ve been operating the pumpkin chunking event for almost thirty years without a single liability waiver? No separate business entity, no additional insurance coverage, nothing.”

He shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. “No one’s ever gotten hurt. Safety first.”

“That’s not the point!” I snapped, finally turning to face him.

“Billy, one person gets hit by a flying pumpkin, one kid trips and breaks an ankle in your corn maze, and they can sue you for everything. The farm, the house, Mom and Dad’s retirement savings.

That sweet RV. All of it would be gone. You are the business.

The business is you. That’s stupid. And dangerous! ”

“Okay, okay, calm down.” He held up his hands defensively. “That’s why I need your help, right? You understand all this legal stuff.”

I ran my hands through my hair. “Have you even looked into what permits you need for this expanded operation? Food service licenses, parking regulations, emergency access requirements?”

“I figured someone would tell us if we needed any of that.” He held up his crossed fingers. “So far, so good.”

“Shit, Billy.” I took another sip of the terrible scotch.

“Now that you’re going big, you can’t just wing it anymore.

You’re talking about hundreds of people coming through here every weekend.

This isn’t a few neighbors stopping by to launch pumpkins.

You guys said you’re trying to attract people from out of town.

The people that are going to be buying tickets aren’t going to be your neighbors.

They’re strangers. People you don’t know from Adam.

People are litigious. Why do you think there are so many rich lawyers! ”

Instead of getting defensive like I expected, Billy pulled up the other chair and sat down across from me. “Look, I know I’m in over my head with this stuff. That’s exactly why I was hoping you’d stick around and help me figure it out.”

“I can’t stay indefinitely to hold your hand through basic business practices.”

“I’m not asking you to hold my hand. I’m asking you to teach me. Walk me through what I need to know before you leave again.” His voice was calm. “You’re my brother, Garrett. And you’re the only person I know who understands this corporate bullshit.”

I stared at him, caught off guard by his admission. I’d been prepared for an argument, for him to tell me I was being paranoid or controlling. Instead, he was acknowledging that he needed help.

“The first thing we need to do is set up a separate LLC for the Halloween attraction,” I said finally. “That way, if something goes wrong, they can only go after the business assets, not the farm itself. Not you. Or me apparently since I’m on the paperwork.”

“Okay. How do we do that?”

I pulled up the New York State filing website. “We file articles of organization, get an EIN from the IRS, open a separate bank account. It’s not complicated, but it has to be done right. And soon. Like two weeks ago.”

Billy leaned forward, actually paying attention as I walked him through the process. “What about insurance?”

“I’ve got quotes from three different carriers. It’s pricey, but, Billy, that’s not optional. One lawsuit could cost you everything.”

He whistled low. “If you say we need it, we need it.”

“It’ll be a lot less than losing the farm,” I said dryly.

For the next hour, I walked him through boring but crucial legal hoops he needed to jump through. Billy asked good questions and took notes, which was an encouraging sign. When we were kids, he’d never had the patience for details like this.

“Man, I feel like there’s a lot more I need to learn before you leave,” he said.

“Yeah, there is,” I muttered. “But we’ll get it all sorted out.”

“When are you heading back exactly?” Billy asked, leaning back in his chair. “Obviously, I want you to stay forever. But I’m just curious. When do you have to be back?”

I stared at my laptop screen. The question I’d been avoiding thinking about too hard.

“That’s the thing,” I said slowly. “I don’t actually have a hard deadline to go back.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

I closed the laptop and reached for the scotch again. “That big deal I told you I closed? Well, I thought it was going to be my big launch. I thought it was time to have the conversation about making partner.”

“And?”

“My boss said if I want to make partner, I need to prove I can generate my own business. Bring in my own clients, my own deals. They’re not just going to hand me cases anymore. I need to go out and find them myself.”

“Okay,” Billy said carefully. “That doesn’t sound completely unreasonable.”

I laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Billy, I’m a lawyer, not a salesman. I’m good at contracts, negotiations, and legal strategy.

But schmoozing with potential clients at country clubs and charity galas?

Convincing some CEO to hire me instead of the hundred other corporate attorneys in Manhattan? I have no fucking idea how to do that.”

“So they basically cut you loose.”

“Sink or swim,” I confirmed. “I have to prove myself. Find my own clients, close my own deals, show them I’m partner material. Otherwise…” I shrugged.

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise I’m just another senior associate who’s hit his ceiling. They’ll keep me around to do the grunt work on other people’s cases, but I’ll never make partner. Never get my name on the letterhead. Never make the big bucks.”

“That’s why you’ve got time to help me with all this paperwork stuff? You’re not working on anything right now.”

“Exactly. And the pressure is killing me. I’ve got maybe four months left to figure out how to become a rainmaker, and I’m sitting here in Greenleaf building scarecrows and incorporating your pumpkin business.”

“Hey,” Billy said with an air of defensiveness. “Don’t talk about it like that. Like helping your family is somehow beneath you.”

I held up a hand. “That’s not what I meant. I just worked so hard to get where I am, Billy. Six years at this firm, eighty-hour weeks, missing holidays, missing birthdays. And now it feels like they’re telling me none of that matters unless I can bring in the big money clients.”

“You know what this sounds like to me?”

“What?”

“It sounds exactly like me not knowing how to handle all this legal and business stuff for the farm. You’re great at the lawyer work, just like I’m great at growing pumpkins and building corn mazes. But they’re asking you to do something you’ve never had to learn how to do.”

I stared at him, surprised by the parallel.

“The difference is,” Billy continued, “I’ve got you to help me figure out the business side. Who’s helping you figure out the client development side?”

“No one,” I admitted. “Ron basically said good luck and sent me on my way.”

Billy grinned. “Well, for what it’s worth, you’ll always have a place here. Even if those ungrateful dicks at Ivar and Geiss don’t appreciate what you bring to the table, I do.”

“Thanks, Billy.”

“I’m serious. You’ve been here three days and you’ve already saved my ass from potential lawsuits I didn’t even know existed.

You carved the best jack-o’-lantern any of us have ever seen.

And you spent an entire afternoon getting dirty and building scarecrows without complaining once. ” He grinned. “Well, not much anyway.”

I found myself almost smiling. “It wasn’t that bad. It’s been kind of nice being outside all day.”

“See? Maybe those Manhattan lawyers aren’t the only ones who could use your help. Maybe there are plenty of small businesses and family operations that need good legal advice but can’t afford the big city rates.”

I frowned. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. Just saying maybe the answer isn’t figuring out how to play their game. Maybe it’s figuring out how to play your own game.”

I watched Billy leave and sighed. I was surrounded by stacks of paperwork that needed organizing. Man, they needed to be brought into the twenty-first century.

I leaned back in the creaky desk chair and rubbed my eyes. The scotch was making me drowsy, but I wasn’t ready to call it a night. There was still too much to sort through, too many loose ends that needed tying up before Billy could safely open his doors to the public.

I pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk, looking for more of Dad’s financial records, and my hand brushed against something that felt different from the usual manila folders. I pulled out a small wooden box, about the size of a cigar box.

Inside were letters. Dozens of them, tied with faded ribbon and written in the careful script of people who’d learned penmanship when it still mattered.

I opened one of the letters, hoping I wasn’t snooping too much.

I shouldn’t have opened them. They weren’t meant for me.

But something about finding them made me curious.

It was a letter from my great grandpa to my grandpa.

The letter talked about holding on to the farm.

I flipped through one letter after another.

It was always about the farm. They struggled.

Three generations before us had fought like hell to keep the land.

They were never rich but they stayed afloat by the skin of their teeth.

It was never about getting wealthy. It was always about passing the land down to the next generation.

Me. Billy.

One day, our kids.

Well, Billy’s kids. It was Billy’s farm and I wanted to make sure there was a legacy for him to pass down. I didn’t want to be the one that fell asleep on the job and lost the place. That meant I had to do all I could to help Billy make his wild ideas a success.

And protect his crazy ass in every legal way possible.