"I wasn't joking about having cookies for dinner," Joel protests in that same dry voice he usually uses and he realizes he has to stop that, especially here, especially when Raleigh seems so unsure of where she stands with them. It's happened so much more quickly than it has with most people -- that's at least a little Spencer's doing, he knows -- but in a short period of time, Raleigh has become important to him much in the same way Cosette is important, similar to how he thinks about Charlotte and he's never told anyone that, he's never sure how to say it or if such a comparison would even be welcome, but it's how he's come to think of her all the same. And he knows when he often speaks it's without much inflection, making it unclear what he means or feels, and he's trying to work on that, but it doesn't always come easy.

"You're not in the way," he says, trying his best not to sound the way he usually does, trying to sound gentle. That's not what he wants her to think, especially not after the things she had told him, the things he knows that man had said to her. It's why she's here with them instead of trying to get through this alone and the last thing he wants her to think is that anything that man said to her was right. That she's easily forgotten or that they wouldn't notice if something happened to her.

He tries for a smile, then adds, "And I love apple turnovers." Which she knows and he knows she knows it. He doesn't expect that they're all for him, but the fact that she's making them at all is more than enough. He doesn't want her to think she needs to bake for them to want her around, but he thinks such things aren't so easily swallowed, especially after what she's been through. The only thing they can do is be there, take their time, help her realize she's not simply tolerated, but welcome.