Sam groaned. "Should I be flattered or scared?" Sam asked while giving him a wry grin.
"Both. I'm going to devour every hot, tasty inch of you. Now let's go home before I do something indecent out here," Wyatt said letting him go and taking his hand.
It was nice of Raquel to babysit, but Wyatt didn't want to be gone too long. Coming through the front door, they found Raquel with Brownie in her lap while the kids were counting out different color M&Ms on the coffee table.
"Raquel said we can play with them, but we can't eat any more," Riley told Sam and Wyatt.
"How did it go? Was Raquel good?" Wyatt asked the boys.
"Aren't you supposed to ask the babysitter about the kids?" Sam said.
"They already know how to be kids. So how did she do?" Wyatt asked.
"She did good," Riley said. DJ agreed, but he also seemed thoughtful and a little bit sad.
While Sam helped Raquel clear the glasses and snack bowls from the coffee table and take them to the kitchen, Wyatt got down in front of the boys.
"What's going on with you? Something the matter?" Wyatt asked DJ.
"Raquel was talking to her mom on the phone," DJ said sadly, and now Riley looked sad too.
Though it was already the kids' bedtime, Wyatt thought of something they should do first. "Let's go print up a picture of you and your mom. What do you say?" Wyatt said and they all went to look at the photos on the laptop.
The one the boys picked out was of the two of them piled together on the couch with their mom and they were all laughing. "Looks like something made you laugh here," Wyatt said.
"It's because of the itsy bitsy," Riley said and he made spidery motions with his hands.
"Mom did the Itsy Bitsy Spider song and then she tickled us," DJ said with a smile.
"Your mom was fun, huh?" Wyatt said as all of them stared at the photo.
"Yeah, she could even make Dad laugh," DJ said, and Wyatt knew that was quite an accomplishment.
"Your dad wasn't ticklish, was he?" Wyatt said. He knew that from his own experience being the little brother who was desperate to get his big brother to laugh.
"No. We tried and tried, but we couldn't tickle him," Riley said.
"He just went like this." DJ demonstrated their dad shrugging. "And then he would say, 'Sorry, boys.'"
"I tried to tickle him too. When it came to tickle fights, I always lost," Wyatt told them.
Even though it was hard for him to talk about Lloyd, he wanted to help the boys hold onto their memories of their parents. He knew how precious and fragile they could be. How they could fade and disappear from a young child's mind like they did for him. Even when his mother was still alive out there somewhere, to him, she was already as insubstantial as a ghost.
As they put the latest picture in the album, they looked at the one they printed last time. It was of the boys playing football with their parents. DJ and Lloyd were in the background and the boys' mom had her arms around a football while Riley, at around two years or so, had his arms around her legs. He might have been trying to tackle her or maybe just hug her.
"I want to print another picture," DJ said suddenly.
"OK, which one," Wyatt said. He figured they might want a picture with their dad, but DJ had something else in mind.
"From your phone, Uncle Wyatt," he said.
The three of them huddled together to look at the pictures Wyatt had on there. Finally DJ pointed at a picture of Wyatt and the boys that Sam had taken when they went fishing. The river was turning peachy in the background while Peach Tree Hill was right over Wyatt's shoulder, glowing with the sun just starting to set.
"This one," DJ told him and Riley seconded that.
"Yes. That one is good," he agreed.
Wyatt clicked print, and they all watched as a picture of him with the boys came out of the printer.
