She was funny. Really funny. He laughed. So far Harding was quite pleased with the current neighbor situation. Sanctuary Terrace kept getting better all the time. “That’s me,” he said. “Handsome Furniture Moving Fanatic. ‘Harding’ comes from hardwood table.” There were worse things that Harding could be accused of being a fanatic in. A lot better ones too, like sports, but as an experienced fanatic, Harding knew firsthand that you could be a fanatic about a lot of things.
You could tell a lot about someone’s character by the way they reacted to Harding’s open palmed excuse not to shake a person’s hand. Most of the time, people went with it, but you could tell they were going with it because they weren’t quite sure what to do. Other times, people were good-humored and totally embraced it. Harding had never had anyone start spouting other facts like that, though.
“Woah,” Harding said. “Are either of those true?” The language she’d used made it unclear whether she was making up those examples with her creativity or if they were fascinating facts. Either way, Harding was impressed.
“A McKenna?!” Harding beamed when she said her name, and his mouth opened in awe. “No way! I love the McKennas. They’re some of my favorite people. And you’re named after the jungle. That fits so well. Jake and I go back…” Harding sobered. “I’m so sorry. Is what happened why you moved up here?”
Regardless of why she moved up here, it was nice to talk about something else. Get their minds off of the kind of tragedy that didn’t care about physical strength, or smarts, or anything else. Harding hadn’t been up to see Jake since Jake had gone under. Harding wasn’t sure he could handle it, and he wasn’t sure about the decorum. One of his friends had never gone into a coma before.
He’d thought about trying his magic hands on him to see if he could ramp up Jake’s healing process, but Harding was worried about ramping up whatever was wrong.
“You haven’t?” Harding asked when Savannah said that she’d never lived on her own. “You’re going to love it. Living on your own is the best.” He shook his head when she offered to let him off the hook. “No way, I’ve got to see this super comfy couch. We’ve gotta get that up here so that we can sit on the thing and test it out. Lead the way.” Harding liked a challenge. Besides, this was a panther girl. She was probably stronger than he was. It sounded like a great furniture moving partnership.