Page 40 of Love Lessons
“Hey, Dad,” I say, gritting my teeth. “Missed your calls because I’m in Italy on vacation.”
“How relaxing,” he says drily. “But you’d better get back to New York, because you have a big problem to fix on that real estate purchase.”
My blood pressure spikes again. “What kind of a problem?” The truth is that I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just didn’t think I’d fuck up so soon.
“You bought the place under your own name! That’s a disaster waiting to happen. The way this stands, you have a shit ton of liability, son. Any idiot who trips on the front steps can sue you for every penny you made playing hockey.”
“Well, fuck.” My stomach plummets. And then I ask him the kind of question he loves to hear from me. “What should I do? Can I fix it?”
“You need to incorporate, and then rent your apartment from the corporation.”
“Oh,” I say slowly. That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. Although it doesn’t sound impossible. I’d been expecting worse news—like the deed was fake, or the building was condemned. God knows I didn’t read every word of the contract the lawyer drew up for me.
But this is just typical Dad stuff. He makes every mistake I make sound like a fatal disease.
I’m twenty-eight years old, and I make two and a half million dollars a year. I play for one of the most successful teams in hockey, and now I’m the proud owner of a hundred-year-old Brooklyn building. And none of it is good enough for him. Nothing ever will be.
And he’s still talking. “…you transfer the property into the corporation to limit your liability. Get on this immediately. Don’t hire anyone to work in there without shielding your assets. Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, I heard,” I say with a sigh. “I need to incorporate. I’ll deal with it when I get back in a couple weeks.”
“A coupleweeks?” The phone basically explodes with another torrent of advice, until he finally exhausts himself on the topic of my financial ineptitude. “You didn’t rent any units yet, right?”
“No tenants yet,” I assure him.
“You gotta vet them,” he says. “Full background check. Criminal as well as financial. One wrong move and you’re stuck with an abusive tenant. Eviction law is not on your side.”
“I know,” I say, just to shut him up. “I need to go, though. Thanks for your help. I’ll get right on that…” What did he call it? “Limited liability thing.”
“You’d better.”
We say goodbye, and I hang up with a sigh. “Is it too early to drink?” I ask the bedspread.
“Definitely,” says a sweet voice nearby. “Talking to your parents?”
I sit up and spot Vera in the bathroom, a hairbrush in her hand. “Just, uh, talking to my dad,” I grumble. “Always a pleasure.”
She’s changed into another one of her little dresses. This one is orange, sporty, and stops just above her knees. Maybe there really was a point to all that luggage. “Your dad wants you to form an LLC?” She’s wearing those hot mirrored shades again, so I can’t see her expression.
“Right. Sorry if that conversation was not exactly vacation worthy.”
She shrugs those smooth shoulders. “I had to do an LLC in April for my business. I have a guy. I could email him for you.”
“Yeah?” She has all my attention now. “Was it complicated?”
“The lawyer does all the work. All I had to do was sign some papers and pay him almost two thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money to me. But I listen to a lot of entrepreneurial podcasts, so I knew I needed to do it.”
“Business podcasts, huh?” I give her a wink. “Sexy.”
She grabs her mirrored shades off her face and stares me down. “Are you shaming my kinks, Ian? Is that lesson number two?”
A bark of laughter flies out of my mouth. “God. Sorry. We all have different hot spots, huh?”
She smiles, and then her eyes flip downward, as if she’s a little shy. “I’ll find the lawyer’s contact information.”
“Yeah, baby.” I drop my voice low. “Whisper it in my ear. Attorneys make me horny.”
Vera giggles.
