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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.”
    “Parents let you move off?”
    “They were killed in an airplane crash,” Kathy Ann volunteered.
    “Oh. Sorry.”
    “It’s okay. It was a long time ago. We’re all the family we have now.”
    “I know the feeling,” Keefer said. “It’s like my parents went down in a plane.”
    “Keefer lives here,” Charlotte Lily said, obviously enjoying our warm conversation.
    “Here?”
    “In the back,” he said. “I have a small apartment Izzy lets me have. It’s all one room, nothing special.”
    “I’m going to the bathroom,” Charlotte Lily declared.
    “Don’t do nothin‘ bad in there,” Keefer warned. He looked serious. I waited until she went in and then asked him what he meant by that.
    “She’s been known to light up a joint or two or sniff some snow. All I need is Izzy to think I let something like that happen in his place. Ain’t that right, Kathy Ann?”
    “Yes,” she said obediently.
    “Where do you live?”
    “She lives in my complex, upstairs, in Cory Lewis’s apartment,” Kathy Ann answered for me.
    He shrugged.
    “I don’t know him. So, are you a singer, too?”
    “Hardly,” I said.
    He laughed.
    “You’re probably the only one in Nashville who would admit it.”
    Charlotte Lily emerged from the bathroom, apparently having gone in only to check on her makeup.
    “Don’t worry,” she said when he glared at her. “I didn’t do anything that would get you in trouble.”
    “That’s a surprise. Well, I gotta get back to this car,” he said, more to me than to Kathy Ann and Charlotte Lily.
    “Sad when a young man like that is more interested in working on a car than being with us, isn’t it, girls?” Charlotte Lily teased.
    He looked back.
    “I don’t get many arguments from my cars,” he told her. “And they appreciate what I do for them.”
    “Oh, you poor sad boy. Someone done your heart in good. Put that torch to work and mend it,” she told him, laughed again, and sauntered back to the door. “Let’s go, girls, unless you’d rather stand there and watch Keefer make love to a fender bender.”
    I glanced back at him. He