"They've been properly disciplined?" Sam asked as Wyatt came back through the front door.
"They learned their lesson," Wyatt said.
"I better go now," Sam said.
"I'll walk you to your car," Wyatt said. Sam wanted to point out that it was only a few feet away, but then he decided not to bother since they were at his car in a few steps.
"We'll see you soon, right?" Wyatt said.
"Sure," Sam told him shyly. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," Wyatt said, and Sam dragged himself away from his gorgeous, blue eyes and got in his car.
He left with the sight of Wyatt waving in his rear view mirror. As he drove into town and then went up the back stairs to his room, Sam felt so happy and light. He had never felt that way in his whole life.
Chapter 7
One more night spent in restless sleep and waiting for dawn to break. When morning came, it was bright and Wyatt could hear birds chirping outside his window. Maybe it wasn't so bad to wake up here.
Outside his door, Wyatt heard different kinds of sounds -- stomping of feet and loud whispering. From all the noise they were making, he couldn't figure out if the boys were trying to wake him or not wake him.
When Wyatt did finally come out of his room, he made them jump.
"Are you gonna chase us again?" Riley asked and he looked ready to give him a run for his money.
"Too early for me. I have to have my coffee first, and you guys need your breakfast. Go get ready," he told them as he continued on to the kitchen.
As soon as he went in there, he thought about Sam and he smiled. Wyatt made coffee and relived last night like it was a really good date. In particular, he remembered how much he didn't want to let Sam go. It took superhuman effort not to make a serious move on him.
At any other time, that's exactly what Wyatt would have done. But his life was more complicated now. He had the boys to think of.
That reminded him about breakfast. He could already hear the boys chattering as Barney came into the kitchen and headed straight for the back door.
As Wyatt let him out, he called out to the boys, "Come and get your cereal."
With breakfast done, Wyatt took his second cup of coffee into his office while the boys played with Barney. The three of them were a constant background noise, but he had no trouble doing his work.
It was lonely once they were in kindergarten and preschool. Barney was good company, but he was quiet, and Wyatt needed the noise to keep him from thinking about Lloyd.
When his back got stiff from using the dresser as his desk, he decided it was time to take a break and play with Barney for a little bit. Maybe he should be working at the kitchen table instead, but he had noticed that the boys used it for drawing and coloring, and he didn't want to take it over.
When it was time to bring the boys home, Wyatt was relieved. Back at the house, he didn't feel like being cooped up again so soon. "How about if we go and walk Barney?" he asked the boys.
The boys were all for it. Wyatt decided they should walk him over the fields in the back and explore a little so they went out the back door. As soon as he put the leash on Barney, The boys started to fight over who was going to hold it.
Wyatt stepped in and informed them. "You guys will take turns holding the leash. OK? No fighting over Barney."
"Yes sir," DJ said and hung his head. That made Wyatt worry that he had spoken too harshly.
"Are we supposed to say, 'yes, sir" to you too? Like to Dad?" Riley wanted to know. "Are we?"
Wyatt remembered how his father had insisted on that, and it seems Lloyd continued that tradition. Wyatt wasn't going to though. "No. No need for that. But if you want, you can say, 'Yes, sir, Uncle Wyatt, sir!'" Wyatt told them crisply.
"Yes, sir, Uncle Wyatt, sir," Riley said immediately and looked up at him with a big, goofy grin on his face.
Wyatt smiled at him and at DJ too. He remembered that saying, "yes sir" to his father felt wrong, like it put a wall between them. That kind of thing only made Wyatt more rebellious. And the more Lloyd fell in line as he got older, the more alone Wyatt felt. He never wanted the boys to feel that way.
"We'll flip a coin for who gets to hold the leash first," he told the boys. Then he got out an old Austrian groschen he had found. He showed it to them. "This is heads. This is tails. Call it."
