She woke up because her niece had run into her room and was banging plastic sandbox toys together.

“Wake up, Win! Wake up!” she screeched in her babyish voice. “Breffist time!”

“Okay, Cass. Thank you,” Winnie murmured groggily. Cassidy ran out of her room again, still banging the toys together. Winnie had to smile into her pillow.

But there was nothing to smile about by the time she was seated and had admitted she’d been fired to her family. Her grandmother, who had been reading the newspaper, frowned, and her sister, who had been dishing out hash browns, looked sad.

“That’s all right, Sweet Tea,” Lila said bracingly. She was a better sister than Winnie felt like she deserved. “You’ll find something else. I hear the car rental place needs a desk girl.”

“I’ll look into that,” Winnie said, stirring her hash browns aimlessly. “I’m so sorry this happened.”

“Well, don’t be,” her grandmother said, although she was still frowning. “It’s life. The man who runs that place ain’t any good, anyway.”

“No,” Winnie agreed. Cass turned on the TV and spared her from saying anything else. That baby loved cartoons with breakfast.

After Win had washed the dishes and everyone else had left for work—Lila dropped Cass off at Sunday daycare at the church—she sat on the couch feeling morose. She knew she should look at job listings. Of course she should look at job listings. She had to look at job listings.

It just hurt so much to start over. Again. Before Harborview Bites, she’d been let go from the town superstore for taking two sick days in a row. And before that, she’d been fired from the gas station for giving incorrect change one time. On a candy bar.

“Okay, girl. Come on,” she muttered to herself, buried under a heap of blankets. Her eyes were glued to the muted TV, but she wasn’t really watching it. It was a soap opera where two women were fighting sloppily on the roof of a penthouse, permed hair flying. He’s mine, you she-devil, read the closed captioning. Winnie gave herself a pep talk. “Time to get looking. Pick yourself up. Find another gig. Come on.”

Eventually, she found the will to start the hunt. She dragged her banged-up laptop into the living room, flipped it open, and began Googling for work—and she turned the TV off.

Fingers crossed, she spent the morning submitting applications to the car dealership, a chain pizza parlor, a coffee shop, and a grocery store. Stressful. Scary.

By early afternoon, she was mentally exhausted.

And she started thinking about men again.

Men. It’d been awhile since she’d been with a man—not just romantically, but sexually. Her last boyfriend had taken a job as a trucker and disappeared, which she wasn’t angry about. They’d never had great chemistry, but a few random take-homes from bars had been her only relief since then.

Overall, she’d had mediocre luck with men. Well, that was an understatement, actually. In high school, meaner and better-looking kids had given her the nickname Miss Piggy, and she’d heard it come out of more than one boy’s mouth, even boys who had made out with her in dark cars or closets. Garbage times, those.

After graduation, she’d had a string of tepid boyfriends. The best was probably Gavin, who’d moved to Nashville two years ago. He’d said he wanted her to come—Come on, Sweet Tea, let’s blow this town—but she could tell he was really hoping she’d stay. So she did. Lila needed her help with Cassidy, anyway.

She was twenty-nine, almost thirty. She wanted someone real. And she was tired of hooking up with whoever just happened to be there.

So her Googling turned to men, not jobs.

Dating. Matchups.

Meet a man. Meet a man for something serious. Meet a man for marriage. Meet a man for life.

The usual options. OKC. POF.

Creepy paid services.

Wait. Wait.

This was something new.

“MeetYourMate?” she said aloud to the empty room. She clicked on the link. “What is this?”

It was a website she’d never heard of, a service no one had ever mentioned. The terms promised a perfect match for ‘lifelong mating,’ which she thought was a funny-sounding but kind of cute way to say marriage. These platforms really went all out on their branding. Mated, mating, marriage. Sure, whatever.

“We guarantee that every match is carefully considered by our venerable council of elder experts. Wow. They make it sound like the senate is running this website.” She laughed. “They are rarely wrong. They have done this all their lives. It is their calling. Their wisdom is in the pairing of young people who need and were meant for each other. Hmm. Okay. Intense, but interesting.”

The process was simple enough. She’d upload some photos, write a little bio, answer some questions, and send the MeetYourMate office some basic paperwork verifying her identity. And then—and then there was the kicker.

“Once two young people are matched, they will have a choice: to meet, or to cancel the pairing. If a pairing is canceled, there are no appeals permitted. You have decided against each other, and your information will not be shared with each other. You have only one chance to accept a match.

“If you do accept that match, the woman will go to live with the man, in his home, for two weeks. If the couple satisfies each other, they will remain together. She will join his people. We have successfully mated over a thousand couples in this way. Dang, really?”

She thought about it. It wasn’t like she had anything to lose, and she didn’t have a job to take off from. Her meager savings could cover a little trip, although she would want to leave some behind for her family to use if they needed money.

On a whim, she created an account, filled everything out, and then cranked up the ancient scanner in the kitchen and started feeding her identifying documents through. She didn’t understand all the questions the site asked—she checked “bear” for animal. It must mean favorite animal, right?—but she didn’t leave anything blank. No. She gave the site everything she could.

Why the hell not? Why not? She wanted to find someone. Her family wanted her to find someone. Maybe she’d end up with a man.

That would be damn nice.