It didn't help that she had looked up "Todd," or the guy that "played" him, and realized he wasn't coming back. He had been cast as someone on Glee and would be dancing around and singing instead of ever coming back to Univille, South Dakota. Minimal, but just icing on the cake.
However, it was Christmas; the time she loved and loved to spend with her family. She didn't want to let it ruin things. She had wanted all of her family happy! She didn't even know how to approach it at this stage without sounding like she was whining far after the fact. She had been told to stop watching the show by a friend or two when she had admitted what she saw bothered her. Another had told her to grit her teeth and smile when people went on optimistically about it and didn't want to face it realistically, so Claudia had done that. Steve was asking her to not be a socially awkward freakazoid for a few minutes and to actually talk, but she wasn't sure how she should do that and not bring Steve down poopypants style.
So when Steve came in, Claudia had her wireless headphones on and rock music was blaring out of them almost loud enough that he probably could've heard the words if he had tried, though the song was in the midst of a drum solo. There was a receiver plugged into her laptop that was transmitting to the headphones and the laptop was sitting over on the small dining area table. Claudia was sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, tinkering with something with a teeny screwdriver. She didn't look up from her project, not having heard Steve.
Roan did hear Steve and the dog perked up, getting up from where he had unceremoniously flopped down on the floor and walking over to greet the human. Roan's tail was wagging and his tongue was sticking out of his mouth in a rather dopey looking greeting.