Business had been pretty good for the winter months, such as winter was in Jacksonville, Florida.
Aidan Gray had owned the landscaping business he bought from the man who'd mentored him and taught him everything he knew six years ago. Now, at the age of 34, things were going quite well, and with summer just around the corner, the potential to make a lot of money was growing by the day.
It was the second week of April, and the grass was growing again, and that alone meant a huge surge in income. The economy was also booming, and people were spending money again. And a good share of the spending was going to luxury items like landscaping, and all of that was to his financial advantage.
College was a long way off for his nine-year old daughter, Sadie, but Aidan had learned early on it was never too early to prepare. His parents had footed most of the bill for his college education, and although he never used it in his job, majoring in literature had opened a whole new world to him; a world he still loved to explore whether through some new novel or rereading a classic.
Sadie was out of school for Spring Break, and she was with her dad as they headed toward the next job. Since losing her mother three years ago, her father had become her best friend, and it often seemed like he was her entire world. Then again, she was pretty much his whole world so if they were co-dependent, so be it.
Aidan loved having her along, and he'd have been thrilled if she wanted to just sit in the truck and listen to music, but Sadie loved helping, and he loved that she enjoyed it so much. She was now old enough and careful enough that she drove the riding lawn mower they towed around with a bunch of other landscaping equipment. She couldn't quite control the edger or trimmer, but she did a bang-up job on lawns and was extremely careful not to run over anything but grass.
Since the weather was still just pleasantly warm with no trace of humidity, Aidan had the window down and the radio up. Sadie'd never heard the song that was playing, but she was having fun watching her dad sing along at the top of his lungs. She pulled her earbuds out of the iPod she was listening to, and turned to look at her goofy dad.
"Running on empty! Running on—running blind! Running on into the sun but I'm running behind!"
"Okay, this is the best part, honey," he said very fast before going back to singing.
"Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive. Try not to confuse it with what you do to survive."
Sadie turned the volume down on the radio just as her dad was really getting into it, and suddenly his was the only voice singing.
"Hey! What gives?" he asked.
"I don't understand what was so great about that part," she told him.
He wanted to tell her how much he wished he could do the thing he loved the most and get paid for it, but they had a mortgage, car payments, and a ton of other bills. So while Aidan's first love was literature, he did what he did in order to survive. That he happened to be good at it meant being able to make a very decent living doing it. But it wasn't exactly what he'd be doing were he able to do the thing he loved over what he had to do to survive.
He also didn't want to say anything about how often he found himself trying to keep the love he'd had and lost with her mother alive by reliving the past over and over again.
Aidan had plenty of friends, who, like him, were in their mid-30s and who said they were already either bored to death in their marriages or essentially living on fumes when it came to intimacy.
That had never been an issue for him and his late wife, Kayla. One or both of them were always coming up with new ideas to...keep their love alive...and making love never got stale. He knew that wasn't the norm for most people, but he still found it hard to accept that having sex two or three times a month—and boring, mundane, routine sex at that—was the norm for so many people.
From what little he'd read, he knew that a 'sexless marriage' was defined as making love twelve times a year or less. He and Kayla had made love at least that many times a month for as long as they were together. But all that was gone now. He missed her like crazy, but he did his best not to let it show in front of his daughter, and this was no exception.
"I uh, I just really like the beat," he told her. While that was true, it wasn't the full answer to her question, but it allowed him to avoid getting into a deep philosophical discussion well over her ability to understand.
She put her earbuds back in, turned on her iPod, then turned the volume back up just in time for her dad to catch the last stanza of the oldie he still loved.
She heard him singing even over the sound of her own music and laughed at her father as he sang, "Honey you really tempt me, you know the way you really look so kind. I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind."
Aidan checked the digital clock on the dashboard to make sure they weren't running behind then sang the rest of the song just before they pulled up to their next job.
"Navigator? Is this the right house?" he asked loudly enough for Sadie to hear.
She checked the list of jobs they had, looked at the street number then said, "Yep. This is the right address."
This job was for a new client he hadn't met yet. All he had was an email exchange between the property owner and himself on his website. He'd upgraded it two years ago and although it was hard to say exactly how much extra business it had generated for him, he knew the site looked professional, and that it got a ton of hits. Business was exceptionally good so he considered it money well spent.
"Come on. Let's go say 'hello' and see what we can do for this nice lady."
Aidan knew the woman's name was Quinn Johnson, but other than that, he had no idea who she was.
As they stepped onto the sidewalk, Aidan stopped when he saw a very large wooden box on a pole near the mailbox.
"Lending library," he read from the top of the box. Right below that it said, "Free books."
Curious, he walked over and saw it had a wooden door with a latch. He opened it then read, "Take one, return one or trade one. Enjoy the gift of reading!"
He reached in and grabbed the first book he found and smiled when he saw the title.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
That was the first classic he'd ever read, and the only reason he'd read it was having watched the 2002 movie version of the book when he was 16. The plot was thick with jealousy, betrayal, and revenge, and after seeing the movie and reading the book, he was hooked.
"What it is, Daddy?" Sadie asked him.
"It's a lending library. You can take a book or leave one."
"How do you check them out?" she asked, her only experience being the school library.
"You don't, honey. It's on the honor system."
"What if someone takes a book and doesn't bring one back?" she asked.
"That's the risk you take to try and get people to read books," he told her.
He held up the one in his hand, and Sadie recognized it immediately.
"That's your favorite, right?" she asked, knowing it was.
"It is indeed," he said as he gently bonked the top of her head with it.
Sadie giggled just as her dad said, "I think I'm gonna take this home and read it again."
They turned to go the rest of the way up the sidewalk when a very attractive young woman opened the door.
"Hi, there! Are you the landscaper?" she asked cheerfully.
"I am. I'm Aidan Gray," he told her with a smile.
He waited to see if she'd offer her hand to shake, and when she did, he shook it as she told him her name.
"Nice to meet you, Aidan. I'm Michelle Johnson."
