Page 5 of The Nanny Next Door

I was musing over all of the sudden, urgent childcare needs surrounding me as I walked to the nearest subway station. I preferred public transportation to a flashy Tesla or a town car, since it put me in closer contact with the people of the city whom I hoped to help, and it was better for the environment. Plus, I didn’t often have time to socialize without some business pretense, so I relished the chance to absorb the energy of a crowd. And even better, when I put myself among the everyday folks in this vibrant metropolis, every so often, I’d see someone like the young woman who crossed the street in front of me. Someone lovely and intriguing who made the romantic side of my brain start to build a fantasy for me to enjoy.

The woman—clearly no longer a girl, though she carried an air of sweet innocence about her that caught my eye as much as her ample curves and sunny-bright dress—held a sparkly phone case to her ear and spoke into the device with clear trepidation. Her blonde curls shone in the patchy sunlight of a day that wasn’t quite cloudy enough to earn the label of overcast. Her softness, the lovely long-lashed eyes highlighted by a pair of stylish wire-rimmed glasses that sat on her nose, had my silly heart fluttering a bit. This was the type of woman I could easily turn into a specter of my future wife. I smiled a little, wistful at the mental image of her face lighting up at the sight of me coming through the door at the end of a long workday. It wasn’t uncommon for me to imagine pretty women in the role of my future wife, but it was rare for me to see our future children as vividly as I could in this moment—a little girl with my black tresses, this nameless woman’s curls, and all of the love I hoped to give to a real child of my own someday.

I shook my head a tiny bit, as if warding off a pesky mosquito on this warm day, and came back to reality. It was a regular day on the streets of the city, all of the noise and bustle and activity dragging me back into the present. But as the blonde beauty settled in to walk just a step or two behind me, clearly heading toward the same train I was hoping to catch, I found myself hyper-aware of her presence. I even caught snatches of her phone conversation despite the city’s constant buzz.

“It was awful, Gina. He was so—ugh. I just had to quit.” A lovely, sing-song voice accompanied her words, a stark contrast to the content of her conversation. “But I have no idea what to do now. This was the best paying nannying job I could find, and you know how much time I spent looking online.”

My ears pricked at the mention of nannying. The thought that she could solve problems for the people around me, that I could find an excuse to turn her into a recurring character rather than a passing background extra in my life, was exhilarating. I’d love to take the opportunity to get to know the woman behind her pretty face, if such an opportunity presented itself.

Don’t get your hopes up, Felipe, I told my romantic heart. She’s just some girl. You don’t even know her.

Well, I didn’t until she rammed straight into me, nearly knocking us both over onto the sidewalk. She dropped her phone from her ear, yelping in a dainty way that was too cute for words, and I realized slowly that the collision was my fault. I’d been so lost in my romantic reveries that I’d practically stopped in my tracks, not giving her enough time to slow her pace and leaving her no choice but to crash her body against mine.

I wouldn’t have minded under better circumstances. But the poor thing looked pretty stressed out when she saw her phone had fallen to the concrete face-down. I bent to help her retrieve it, handing it to her with deliberate contact, both of us sighing a little when the screen appeared unscathed. Our hands touching in the exchange felt like I’d grabbed a live wire, but with a wave of pleasure instead of pain. I was reluctant to pull back.

Our eyes met, and her full cheeks were pink with an endearing embarrassment, her plump lips slightly parted as her breath came out a little labored. I thought maybe she felt that spark, too. And for once, I wasn’t convinced it was just my imagination.

“I’m–I’m so, so sorry,” she let out breathlessly. Her voice shook, and I could see the beginning of tears forming in the corners of her eyes, in the way she blinked rapidly and avoided my gaze. “I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I was on the phone, which I probably shouldn’t do while walking any?—”

“It’s alright, love,” I told her automatically. “You haven’t bothered me at all.” My voice came out in a lower and more intimate tone than I should use with a stranger. But it came naturally, attached to the deep desire I felt to fix her pain, to rescue a seeming damsel in distress just like I wanted to rescue the rest of the world.

Her face relaxed into a gentle smile, still a little bashful. A curl of her golden hair, a perfect little ringlet that would spring back into place if given a small tug, fell into her face. It was instinct that had me tucking it behind her ear, breathing in her sweet cotton candy scent and relishing the soft brush of her skin against my fingertips, all while we were still crouched there on the sidewalk.

A taxi honking a few yards down the road broke the spell that seemed to have stopped time for us, but only barely. We had to pull ourselves from the haze for a slow second, and in another few seconds, the young woman and I were both sputtering unneeded apologies and standing back upright again. It gave me the chance to get my first full look at her at close range, and I wouldn’t squander the opportunity.

I wasn’t the tallest man, but she was a diminutive height, a full head lower than my natural eye line. It was no trouble to look down into her warm brown eyes, though, to take in the full, lovely portrait of her soft features, her youthful innocence and unvarnished vulnerability. Chocolate caramel irises swirled in a sweet, long-lashed gaze that was watching me with something like awe. It wasn’t an unfamiliar look for me to witness on a woman’s face as she looked at me—women were often charmed by my looks even if they didn’t yet know of my money—but something about it had me blushing when it came from this girl. The sweet scrutiny had me feeling exposed. I cleared my throat.

“Pardon my nosiness,” I started without thinking, “but did I overhear you say on the phone just now that you’re in need of a nannying job?”

She blinked hard and fast, some attempt to wake herself up from a dream. She seemed to buffer before she answered, “Uh… yes?”

My lips twitched with an urge to laugh. But I resisted, continuing instead with, “Well, if you’re not sure, that’s alright. I only ask because I have a couple of friends who may be looking for a nanny. Right away, if possible. So I may be able to help you, if you need it.”

“Oh?” she asked. I nodded, and she glanced around us at the passing pedestrians. A small, tinny sound came from the phone in her hands, reminding us both of it. She looked down, whispered, “Shoot!” then scrambled to put the screen to her ear again. “I’ll call you back, G!”

She hung up and looked back at me, straightening her shoulders. “I’m sorry. You, uh, you need a nanny, you said?”

“Not me,” I reiterated. “Two of my friends. Business associates of mine, in fact. Would you be interested? I can assure you they would pay very well.”

That seemed to be the secret password. As much as she wanted to appear professionally apathetic, her face was an open book. Even behind the glint of her glasses lenses in the mid-afternoon sun, her face was anything but opaque. I could have read every microscopic emotion she even considered having from the expressiveness of her eyes, the gentle dimples in her cheeks. The mention of high pay had her feeling hopeful, almost relieved.

“I—yes, I’m definitely interested,” she assured me with faux casualness.

“Great,” I said with disproportionate enthusiasm. “I can, ah… set up a meeting, if you’re okay with giving me your contact information.”

She hesitated, but then she nodded. “Um. Yeah. I’m, uh, Lila Dawson?”

Lila Dawson. My heart seemed to thump along with her name’s syllables. I took a beat too long to pull out my cell phone and hand it over to her so she could enter her number. As she entered it, I mouthed her name, testing out the feel of Lila Dawson on my lips. I was going mad, surely.

“And, um, you are?” Lila Dawson asked me shyly as she handed back my phone.

“Felipe,” I told her after a concerted effort not to repeat her own name back to her in some kind of trance. Now I was feeling embarrassed. “Felipe Rojas. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lila Dawson.”

God, it tasted even sweeter to say the two words.

“You, too,” she said softly, cracking my heart open.

I hadn’t been this quickly enamored with a woman in ages—maybe ever, if you didn’t include my intense crush on the singer Selena when I was a child. This moment, the first meeting between me and Lila Dawson, felt like the start of a fairy tale love my family had always ridiculed me for dreaming of, and that was just as frightening as it was exhilarating. I willed myself to stay cool, even as we exchanged more brief pleasantries I was too emotionally intoxicated to remember and parted ways.

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