"Awww! You really do like him." She knew Claire'd liked him but this was like liking him. She hadn't been certain before if her cousin had been digging in her heels about it as a slight resistance to the patriarchal rule of her father, but her reaction made Lou think it had to do more with the actual merits of the boyfriend in question. That made Claire's frustrated vent into something really adorable to her.
Lou rolled her eyes. "As long as he treats you right, he could be Lucifer himself and it'd be one of your dad's business." But he needed to treat her right. Lou was still shaken enough by Chance and all the talk at the self-defense classes to look twice over her shoulder when she walked to her car after dark. She knew there were bad people out there, and it was hard to tell who they were; she just never wanted anything like that to touch Claire's life. She didn't think she was the kind of girl to put up with someone who treated her poorly, but it didn't hurt to remind.
Afraid Claire would protest her statement on some kind of religious grounds, Lou quickly followed up her comment with a, "I saw that face. Too hot or too cold?" She could fix the coffee. Coffee was easy to fix. Real life problems weren't. She did her best to stick to what she knew.