1. Leo Ibarra

Chapter one

Leo Ibarra

August, 2024

“ C heck out the hot daddy by the swings,” my nanny friend, Hannah, pointed with her elbow while wrangling her charge. Oliver was a feisty one and it was a good thing Hannah ran marathons. “Dude, you have to hold still so I can take your jacket off.”

Me and another nanny, Alexis, tried to look where Hannah had pointed without being obvious. The sun was bright out, so I had to shield my eyes to look where she gestured. There were mostly moms and nannies with children, so the man she obviously meant stood out.

A Black man, in tan slacks and a T-shirt stretched tight over broad shoulders, was gently pushing a little girl with curls on a toddler swing. He had to be at least mid-thirties with his full beard, which put him firmly in the dad category.

“I haven’t seen him here before,” Alexis tilted her head and squinted even though he was only twenty feet away. She got a face full of puffs for her distraction. “Sorry, Olivia. One second, Sophia,” Alexis apologized to the twins she watched and handed over their bag of snacks so she could continue ogling the dad. “Daddy, for sure.”

Hannah waggled her eyebrows, “I’d let him take me on a spin around the playground, if you know what I mean.”

“We know,” I rolled my eyes at her antics.

“I wanna spin around the playground,” Oliver told Hannah earnestly and she spluttered on how to reply.

“That means take a long walk, buddy,” I told him and he frowned, clearly no longer into the idea. Kids were easy, you just had to learn what they liked and disliked, then use the knowledge for good. This kid hated exercise.

Oliver looked to Hannah for confirmation and she nodded, “Leo is so right. You don’t want to take a boring walk with grownups.” He seemed appeased and went back to fighting her on the removal of his coat.

Hannah was only nineteen to my twenty-three, and sometimes the age gap was obvious. Leaning back on the bench beside her, I kept an eye on my nephew over on the climbing structure. He’d just turned five and thought he could do everything himself. Thankfully, we were past the stage where he threw food and needed diaper changes.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t?” Alexis asked under her breath on my other side.

Shrugging, there was no point denying the man was sexy, “You’re not wrong.”

We were right across from the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, where a rainbow flag was prominently displayed. Living in San Francisco as a gay man had its perks. One of them was being able to check men out openly at a children’s playground.

The sexy older man was looking at the little girl in his care with a sweet smile as she giggled with each swing forward. Everytime she came back to him, he grabbed her seat and pretended to eat her with kisses to her cheek. He loved her, that was clear, and I could see the resemblance. Where she had lighter bronze skin and hair, and his was a warm russet brown, they had the same dark brown eyes. I was going with Hannah’s assumption he was the girl’s father.

“Our luck, he swings your way,” Hannah teased and finally let Oliver go to climb the play structure that looked like a ship. I lived closer to Washington Square, but my nephew preferred this park, and that ship was part of the reason why.

When my big sister, Camila, told me she was going to get pregnant by surrogate and wanted me to move in, I was on board. If it got me out of our parents house in San Jose, all the better. Cam and I loved our big Mexican-American family, but they could be overbearing and judgemental. They stopped speaking to her when they found out she was having a baby on her own at twenty-nine, but they came around for their grandson.

Cam had a great paying job, a three-bedroom rent-controlled place in North Beach, and I could help her save on childcare while I finished my degree in early childhood education. I’d moved in right after high school and hadn’t looked back.

Sadly, my job lent itself to meeting a lot of women and straight parents, not available queer men. I was a nanny to my nephew while I finished college, but he was about to start kindergarten and I was going to work at a preschool in the same building. It would mean more pay—since my sister covered my rent, food, and college, but not minimum wage—but also less time with my favorite human.

“Nacho,” I called out when I saw my nephew trying to stand on top of the climbing web. He’d probably be fine, daredevil that he was, but I didn’t want other kids getting ideas to imitate him. “Come on down, now, Nacho.”

Some other nannies had joined Hannah and Alexis in gossiping about their employers, so I walked towards my nephew and let them get on with it. I was usually the only male nanny, and the only one who worked for family, so I didn’t always fit in with the ladies.

Nacho saw me approaching and finally decided to listen, descending past the other children and rushing to my side, “Tío Leo, did you see how high I was?”

“I did, mijo,” I took his hand as Nacho launched into a story about being king of the park because he was taller than everyone else. I could tell he still had a lot of energy, which we needed to run off before I crossed to the farmer’s market behind the Ferry Building. “Do you want to show me how fast you can run?”

“I’m superfast, tío,” Nacho insisted, holding my hand as we made our way out of the play area to the open grass. I waved to the girls and noticed the handsome dad was pulling his daughter out of the swings. “Time me!”

Nacho took off like a rocket across the grass, and I had to smile. He was a great kid. Bilingual and already reading in both languages, I was proud to have been a small part in how he turned out.

Next week, I’d start dropping him off at the fancy charter school my sister picked out. But the most amazing part was that I would only be one building away if he needed me. I lucked out when I went with Cam and Nacho for his pre-entry interview. The director was impressed by Nacho and Cam told him about my degree. They offered me a job on the spot.

Right now I was basking in the last few days I got to be free with my schedule. I wouldn’t be Nacho’s nanny anymore, but I wouldn’t stop being in his life. Stage one, wear Nacho out, was well on its way to completion. Next we’d buy a few things and head home to make an early dinner.

My sister would say the next phase of my life was to have fun and go on dates, but she didn’t know I had a particular type of man in mind.

A different kind of Daddy.