A lovely natural photo. I don't know light room, but with anything difficult to erase, I would highlight the whole of the background if possible and blur it so that the person is no longer a distraction.
You can use the spot remove but be careful where it gets the fill or use the adjustment brushe an try using exposure, clarity and maybe saturation. Be sure to incllude the whole area where he is. She is sweet.
Agree with Joan. The spot removal tool is very similar to the clone stamp, which you're probably familiar with from PS. However, you can't control the source to clone from. It will give you an indication of where it's copying from so through trial and error you can eventually zero in on a good "clone source." LR does a pretty good job of automatic content aware sensing, but sometimes it's just outright bizarre. Great capture, even with the mean looking dude. ;)
