LITMIR.BIZ

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      There. That guy would fit her like the perfect shoe. At least from his picture. Dark, messy, romantic hair and light green eyes. A man who would sit in her wicker rocking chair and read Byron’s poetry to her. Romantic—at least that’s what she assumed Byron’s poetry would be like.

      All swoony.

      And, after a nasty divorce where she’d felt every last second of North Carolina’s required year-long separation, Beck needed swoony.

      She clicked.

      Her disappointment must have rippled through her body, because Seamus huffed a little on her leg. Mr. Swoony wasn’t an English professor. Or a poet. Or a playwright—a pale imitation of a poet, but it would match the curls in his hair.

      Mr. Swoony did say he was a journalist, though. That was a type of writer and somewhat swoony. And he liked biking. That was interesting. Long bike rides down some of the trails in The Research Triangle area. Maybe they would plan a complete Rails-to-Trails ride from the mountains of North Carolina to the coast. She could picture his hair curling out from under the rim of his helmet along his neck. And, oh yes, there would be picnics.

      Beck could make a mean picnic. After years of working events and in restaurants, she knew how to choose food that would be easy to eat no matter the circumstances. Bride wearing a dress with long bell sleeves that brush across the table? No problem. Bride with a healthy décolletage who doesn’t want to fish food out from between her breasts before the honeymoon starts? No problem. Food that packs nicely, is good at room temperature and easy to eat with your hands? No problem.

      She put her hand on Seamus’s head while she considered her next move. Mr. Swoony looked like he would enjoy a nice picnic. And the kind of guy she would like to make a nice picnic for.

      And Beck missed making a picnic for people. Neil hadn’t been interested in picnics. Of course, she hadn’t thought she’d be interested in picnics, either, until she’d clicked on Mr. Swoony’s picture. It didn’t matter what he called himself on his profile. She was going to think of him as Mr. Swoony. And she was going to click.

      A wink, to start. Messages on the first night of exploration seemed a little forward. She still didn’t know the rules of the online-dating world. She didn’t even know if there were rules. Heavens, despite all this data and Marsie’s insistence that online dating could be hacked with the perfect algorithm, online dating still seemed like the Wild West of meeting men. Which was why she was starting small, with one site, even when there were newer, flashier dating sites available.

      Though, Beck considered as she evaluated the next picture on the screen, online dating couldn’t be any more Wild West than going to a bar and trying to look pretty.

      Not that she would admit doing either to anyone right now. Everyone from her mom to Marsie to the servers at Buono Come Il Pane said she should wait a little longer before dating again.

      “Get that husband of yours out of your head.” That bit of advice she rejected out of hand. Neil had been her college boyfriend and the only man she’d ever seriously dated. How could she get him out of her head if she didn’t have an idea of the kind of man who could replace him? Or even if a man should replace him? Seamus might fit in that companion spot nicely. And then there was the option of empty—empty could be good.

      “Find yourself.” Which was stupid, because Beck knew where she was and she had a dog who snored in her bedroom to ground her to the fact that she was here, in her house, and Neil—the dog hater—wasn’t.

      “You’re young. Take your time.” She paused a little every time that objection came up. Not because it was one hundred percent valid, but because it wasn’t a hundred percent invalid. She was thirty-two. Not young, unless she was being compared to her parents, but not old, either.

      Maybe the biological clock existed. Maybe it didn’t. But something in her head had been ticking nonstop since Neil moved out—and before then, if she was going to be honest with herself, here in the privacy of her own home. She wouldn’t let the annoying noise of others run her life, but she wouldn’t ignore it, either.

       Enough.

      Marsie’s single piece of advice had been not to let online dating be the way she measured anything about her life, and it was the one piece of advice Beck had listened to. Getting responses wouldn’t determine her self-esteem level. She wouldn’t only look for dates. And, while she generally rejected Marsie’s insistence on all things scheduled, she would at least set up a schedule for checking her profile responses. No reason to have online dating become another Facebook that she trolled because she was bored.

      On the other hand, she thought while Seamus sighed for his dinner and a walk, winking at one guy felt like a tacit admission that the men online weren’t all that interesting. Or that she felt over her head. Or that all those people were right and it was too early for her to be here.

      With only a quick glance at the pictures and a more cursory look at the profile information, Beck winked at a few other guys. Then she logged out, snapped her laptop shut and put the thing someplace inconvenient while it charged, just to lessen the incentive to obsessively check if any of the men had responded to her wink.

      When she stood, Seamus hopped on his hind legs. He didn’t jump on her—they’d been working on that—but he bounced. When she reached for the leash, he bowed and barked once, sharply, before running to the door and trying his doggy-darnedest to sit at the door through his excitement and get his leash attached to his collar.

      Once she and Seamus stepped into the fading winter sunlight, online dating was forgotten. Mr. Swoony included.

      * * *

      THE PROBLEM, CALEB Taggert thought, with scheduling dates anytime during when the General Assembly was in session was that you couldn’t control when the men—and it was mostly men talking—would shut up. In theory, everything and everyone had a time limit. In reality, the battles of the General Assembly waged on and on and on. And had for years now.

      The guy talking now had been talking for hours. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t hours, but Caleb had stopped taking detailed notes and was letting his recorder do most of the work. The representative had stopped saying anything new or interesting at least ten minutes ago. The bill under discussion was this man’s pet project and he was going to say what he wanted to say. For reasons Caleb didn’t know, but probably had to do with some backend deal he wanted to know about, committee leadership wasn’t cutting this guy off. Of course, half of what he said was bullshit. Caleb’s copy for the Sunday paper would include a lot of fact-checking and reminding the people of North Carolina about the rules regarding voter registration, IDs and the history of poll taxes.

      The Civil Rights Era had a long tail, with battles like gerrymandering and voting rights seeming to stick to his beloved home state like dog shit to a shoe. The only bright spot—if one could call it that—was that debates like this one reminded Caleb why he’d become a reporter and who he was responsible to. The representative blathering on would be an entertaining guy to have a beer with, but there wasn’t much else good Caleb could say about him. But the constituents whom the man shook hands with when he was home deserved to know what he did with the faith they put in him.

      Caleb’s article would also include some nice details regarding the recent polling about gerrymandering and one-voter-one-vote done in his home district. Stark comparisons like that made good copy.

      Finally, the guy stopped talking about voters counting twice, voting in districts where they weren’t registered and—the money shot of scare tactics—undocumented immigrants voting. The session was about to be wrapped up and then all the people crowded into the committee room would spill out onto the lawn for a rally in favor of election-map reform. He’d need to stay for that, too, and talk with some of the protestors. The paper was sending a photographer over—there were bound to be some good signs and probably an arrest or two.

      Politics in North Carolina hadn’t been boring...well, they’d never been boring, but they’d certainly gotten

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