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“I swear, Kathy Ann, you still don’t know anything about men, do you?”

“Why?” she wailed as we turned a corner into a side street.

“Why? You don’t remind a man of a time when he looked a fool or lost a fight. Sometimes I wonder if you learn anything being in my company. She’s still a virgin,” she told me.

“So am I,” I said.

“Sure, right. And there really is a Santa Claus. Oh, good, Keefer’s at work,” she announced. “The light’s on in the shop, and he’s the only one who would be working now.”

We entered through a side door. A young man was working on a car fender, the sparks flying from his welding torch. There was a radio blasting country rock music. The shop was lit by a half-dozen white neon lights. Next to the car that the young man worked on was a vehicle with its rear end bashed in, a taillight hanging by wires as if the accident had just occurred.

“He hates it when I sneak up on him,” Charlotte Lily told me with an impish grin. Then she did just that. She walked up beside him, waited a moment, looked back at us, and with her hands around her mouth, shouted, “Keefer!”

He jumped to the side, the torch nearly turning at Charlotte Lily, who then screamed.

“Damn you, Charlotte Lily,” Keefer shouted at her after lifting his mask off his face. There was a streak of grease down his right cheek. “I told you a hundred times that’s dangerous. You nearly got fried.”

Charlotte Lily regained her composure.

“Oh, fiddlesticks, Keefer. You’ve become an old fuddy-duddy at the ripe old age of nineteen.”

“Right,” he said. He still hadn’t noticed either Kathy Ann or me. “What’s up?”

“I wanted you to meet our new friend. She just moved here from… where you from, Robin?”

“Granville, Ohio,” I said.

Keefer turned to me, and for a long moment, we just gazed at each other. He had a strong, square jaw with firm lips, dark eyes, and hair the color of a crow. Although his hair wasn’t really long, it looked wild and untrimmed, but somehow, it wasn’t unattractive. There was something very natural about it.

“Like what you see?” Charlotte Lily asked, and followed her question with her short, thin laugh.

He tilted his head and looked at her, the side of his mouth lifting just slightly as he squinted.

“What are you up to now, Charlotte Lily?”

“Nothing. We’re going to Stumpin‘ Jumpin’ and thought we’d stop by and see how you were doin‘ first, Keefer,” she said with a voice dripping maple syrup.

“Right,” he said, and wiped his hands on a rag before walking toward me and Kathy Ann. “You really her new friend?” he asked.

“We just met about twenty minutes ago,” I replied. He smiled at my honest and exact reply.

“I’m Keefer Dawson.”

“Robin Taylor,” I said.

He held out his hand, looked at it, and then pulled it back because it was thick with grime.

“You don’t want to shake that if you’re going to Stumpin‘ Jumpin’.”

“You wanna go with us?” Charlotte Lily asked him. “We can wait for him to clean up, can’t we, girls?”

“Oh yes,” Kathy Ann said quickly.

“You’d even take him along dirty,” Charlotte Lily told her, and she withered quickly, even stepping back.

“No, thanks. I’ve got to finish this car tonight. Promised Izzy I’d have it ready for paint in the morning. You here for good or what?” he asked me.

“I think both,” I said, and he laughed. “I’m with my sister, who came here to be in a band. She sings.”