Comeuppance!
“So those are your tourists?” Lucas asked Catty. He did try to keep the smirk out of his voice, but not very hard.
“Not as much as you, gramps,” Catty replied, in a voice sweet enough to make your teeth ache. Lucas’s smirk popped like a soap bubble — well, that’s a lie. Some of it decided to visit my face. “And they ain’t my tourists, neither. These aren’t the usual flounders, come slumming. They’re…” she broke off, frowning.
That got my attention. When a teenager starts giving off looks like that, a lot of times it’s because somebody hadn’t been friendly to her lately. Or they’d tried to be too friendly, too soon. Girls and boys grow up quick in New California, but not that quick.
Lucas must have picked up on that, too, because he choked out his incoming snit-fit and got his head on the job. If this was one. “These guys can’t take a hint, Catalina? Even when it’s swung at their heads?”