Page 2 of Leo

I’m sorry this letter will come as a surprise, but you know I love surprises. Hopefully you think Dezi is the best surprise of all. I thought she came early, but when she arrived at a whopping nine pounds, I knew Dezi was yours. That guy split, and it hasn’t been easy. I really tried, I promise I did, but I just can’t do it. Between my own trauma and postpartum depression, I am not fit to be her mother.

When I looked for you at your old place, they said you moved. My therapist said I could surrender Dezi to the state, or leave her at a fire station or hospital. But she has a Dad. You.

I know we weren’t a good fit, but you were always the best Daddy this girl could ever dream to have. I wish you could have seen her first smile and heard Dezi’s first laugh. You’ll get the rest of her firsts. You’ll be the best parent for her, and I am signing our daughter over to you. The paperwork is all done on my end…

The rest of the letter blurred and I realized I was crying. She was talking about me being a father. A mewling sound came from the car seat and I leaned forward to see if the bear had made the noise. Because I had clearly lost my mind.

The bear fell forward onto its face, revealing the light brown skin of a baby blinking up at me. She had curly hair, a little darker than her skin, a button nose, and bow-shaped lips.

And she looked just like me as a baby.

“What the actual fuck, Savvy?”

Valentine’s Day, 2024

Celebrating my daughter’s first birthday was not what I’d normally be doing on Valentine’s day, but nothing in my life had been the same since Dezi had been left at my door.

“Bring that baby over here for Grand-Pop to cuddle,” my dad cooed and held out his arms. I’d just had him relocated to a facility only an hour from San Francisco, because I couldn’t keep traveling to him with a toddler on my hands. “I’m so glad to meet you properly, sweet girl.”

My dad ran a rough hand over her curls that I had yet to learn how to tame. I was a Black man, not a black woman. I kept my hair shorter than my beard. Everything was a learning curve, but at least I’d gotten permission to work from home after my one month leave of absence.

“She sleeping through the night yet?” Pop asked, bouncing a giggling Dezi on his knee. I’d never seen him so soft, and I couldn’t help being glad he got to be around Dezi before his dementia got worse.

“About six hours,” I admitted. It was when I got the majority of my work done. Client calls happened during her two naps a day. Scheduling anything on video was a crapshoot.

“Raising children takes a village. You need a woman,” Pop declared before he stopped bouncing Dezi and got a faraway look. I grabbed my daughter from his hands before they could go slack.

“Pop?” I tried, but he was gone, likely until he napped. It was time to go already.

Packing up Dezi’s diaper bag, I walked us out to my car and settled her in. She wasn’t happy about being back in the car seat, but I needed a minute. I turned the car on so the heat and defrosters were running, and then leaned against the door.

My current situation was the result of dating around in my mid-thirties and having fun in kink, but I had to put all of that aside for her. Dezi needed me to be her Daddy, and she had to be my main focus.

Sure, I could afford to hire a nanny if I never wanted to see my daughter. But I wasn’t able to maintain the same number of clients after taking a month off, and I didn't want to be an absent father. I had no clue how much attention or neglect Dezi had been through, and had no luck tracking down her mother. I needed to be there for her.

If only I had a partner on the new path my life had taken. Because my dad was right about one thing, I couldn’t do this alone.

Chapter one

Leo Ibarra

August, 2024

“Check 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.