One Last Chance
Newsletter Exclusive Bonus Chapter
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This bonus chapter takes place after the end of the book's story. It should only be read after finishing it.
Content warnings: none

Five Months Later
Dayton
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It’s one of those days when I count every second till I’m able to leave work. One of those days when I keep going to the office kitchen to get coffee even though I haven’t even finished the first two I’ve already made. Just an excuse to get away from the damn screen and waste some time.
My brain feels useless today. I’ll probably just finish the most important things, do a sloppy job on the stuff I can get away with, and catch up on everything tomorrow morning.
As I stand leaning against the kitchen counter with the steaming mug pressed against my lips, I sense a movement in my peripheral vision. I blink and straighten my back to look somewhat busy, but quickly relax again when I see it’s Joanne.
“Jo,” I say as a greeting. I’ve barely seen her today.
She’s rolling his eyes with a huff as she comes to me, reaching for the coffee. “Ah, I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea for me to train the new guy,” she mutters before raising her head to me with a smirk.
“You’re good with people, you learn fast, and you’re a people pleaser,” I say and tilt my head with an understanding chuckle.
“Unfortunately.”
She doesn’t seem really that bothered, just overthinking and too self-critical like always.
I lean closer while she makes her coffee. “Hey, just keep reminding yourself that he’s a replacement for gropey Drew,” I say with a wink. “The fact that the prick is gone should be consolation enough.”
Joanne grins at me. “Yeah…right! You’re right!” she says victoriously.
“Him finally getting fired is the best thing that’s happened to this office in years,” I say, carefully sipping on my coffee. When I raise my hand, Joanne’s eyes catch the ring on my left hand and, just as they always do, they widen and sparkle with admiration.
I nearly shoot the hot liquid at her when I snort into the cup. She frowns playfully and turns around. “Sorry! Ugh, it’s just so pretty. You can’t blame me for admiring it!”
The ring is pretty. A simple silver band with a few tiny sapphire stones of different colors. I still don’t understand how Rowland perfectly guessed what I would’ve liked—something unique and flashy but discreet at the same time—considering I don’t wear jewelry that much. Remembering that evening still makes me all giddy and warm inside and makes my heart hiccup. The way he looked at me. The bubbling fear behind his eyes. As if I would’ve ever said no.
“If I ever lose it, I know where to look,” I note, narrowing my eyes at her. Joanne pokes me with a snort.
“I still can’t believe you’re getting married. You really should have an autumn wedding. It’s so magical,” she says, clearly daydreaming of her own perfect day. “I mean, it’s up to you, of course.”
The corner of my mouth shoots up. Well, at least I know for sure who’s going to help me with organizing. Though, Joanne might fight with Ma for the position. I think I still have some hearing loss from her bursting my eardrums when I told her.
“Might be whatever works for Rowe’s job and the kids’ school. I don’t really care, honestly. I just want it to be a good time for everybody. That’s all that matters.” I smile to myself.
“Well, don’t take too long with it! It’s bad luck.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say and put the coffee on the counter next to me to be able to stretch with a groan. God, even standing here chatting is making me tired.
“You okay?” Joanne asks, knitting her brows.
I shrug. “Yeah. I’m just a little sore. Been feeling tired lately. I hope I’m not getting a cold, but might as well be. Mac keeps bringing all sorts of bugs from school. He’s always snotty, but no less full of energy. Joys of being a kid, I guess. Happily running around sick while making the adults around you suffer.”
She chuckles with me, her expression one of pity.
I figure I’ve been lazy enough and need to finish my goddamn file before I get an email from Anthony. I’m behind already.
Joanne and I have the sort of non-verbal communication now that I don’t even have to say anything. We nod at each other and I head outside the kitchen with my mug in hand. On the first step into the hallway, I pause. Out of nowhere, I get hit with a rank stench that nearly makes me buckle. The sound of my disgusted gagging makes Joanne turn at me from pouring her coffee with raised brows.
“Huh?”
“Oh god. Can’t you smell that?” I glare at her, confused. It’s like something freaking died around here.
Joanne walks out with her cup, and the scent of coffee masks it for a second, but it quickly fades away and all I can smell is that horrendous stench again. We both look at each side of the hallway, while Joanne flares her nostrils like some wild animal.
“I can’t smell anything,” she mutters, looking puzzled.
“There’s no way. Am I crazy?” She shrugs with an apologetic grimace. “Ah. Nevermind. I must be tired or something,” I say with my head down, sighing as I run my hand over my freshly buzzed head.
She heads to the main office area with me but breaks away because the new guy’s cubicle is on the other side of the room. Just as she’s about to turn, I notice the janitor passing through, dragging a huge bag of garbage with him, clearly in the middle of changing the trash cans. I slap my hand over my mouth and nose.
“Fuck, that’s what it was.”
Joanne stops. She looks toward the janitor doing his job without even glancing up at us, then me, then glances around again.
“It’s coming from— Can’t you…?” Starting to feel crazy, I take two steps to the entrance of my neighboring cubicle and peek in. Henry jerks away from the screen and looks at me. “Hey. Can you smell that? You know, the disgusting, overpowering stink?” I ask sharply and try to ignore the socially awkward panic in his face. Henry’s usually happy with no one talking to him. He does his job, quietly and efficiently, and that’s it. In my years of working here, I’ve barely ever heard him say more than a few sentences.
He sniffs the air while Joanne leans in, joining on the investigation, and shakes his head while he cautiously looks at me from behind his glasses.
I grumble to myself and sharply turn back. I sit in my chair with a grunt, putting the coffee under my nose to zone out the stench that apparently only I can smell!
A heat, maybe? From time to time, my senses go completely haywire right before it happens. But it shouldn’t be coming for a while.
Joanne doesn’t come with me, so I expect her to head back to the newbie, but she steps in a few moments later with a disturbing, worrying expression on her face.
She’s narrowing her eyes at me, darting them all over, so much so it starts to make me nervous. “I swear I’m not losing my mind,” I mutter in response, letting out a little chuckle.
Still looking concerningly thoughtful, she rests against the edge of my table. I’m about to tell her she’s freaking me out when she finally speaks. “You said that you and Rowland were letting things flow and happen when trying for a baby, right?” she asks, sounding ominously.
I frown. Not sure how our sex life fits into this, but… “Yeah?”
“Okay, so,” she blurts, the speed of her speech suddenly going up two hundred percent, “my boyfriend’s sister is pregnant, and at the beginning, she always told me how she could smell everything and anything and she could smell it suuuper strongly. Everything was making her sick, even the most random little things no one else noticed!”
Blinking at her in confusion, it takes my brain a moment to catch up with the words shooting out of her mouth. When it does, it’s like they slap me in the face.
“I… No way,” I blurt out with a nervous snort. My fingers feel weirdly numb all of a sudden, like I’m separating from my body.
“Why not? You’re tired, too?! Oh my god, Dayton!”
Her words fade away in my mind. I don’t know why I’m this rattled by the idea.
I guess things have been going pretty well for Rowland and I. We’ve definitely been doing well when it comes to that. He’s so damn quick to knot me, more than any other man I’ve been with. And we haven’t been using protection, but…’letting things happen’, as he calls it, always felt more like a nice way of admitting that things probably won’t happen and that it’s okay.
A sweet little dream. A lovely ‘what if’ or a sexy, dirty thing to whisper into my ear when he fucks me and comes inside of me.
And Joanne is saying it could be reality?
I think she notices how taken aback I am by her suggestion. Putting her hand on my shoulder, she tells me to think about it and leaves me alone. For the rest of the day, I barely get anything done. Mostly, I just sit in my chair, staring into the wall of my cubicle.
Freaked out. I’m more freaked out than taken aback. Why?
I’m freaked out by being freaked out.
By the time I finally finish work, it’s all I can think about. I’m in a trance on my way to the shop where I buy a pregnancy test and I’m in a trance as I drive home.
No one is in, thank god. I need to get myself together before I figure out if this is really happening. Rowland isn’t due to come back with Mac and Mina for the next hour or two, which gives me enough time.
Time for what? For getting myself together after seeing the test is negative and having a little cry?
My hand shakes when I pee on the stick. I put it on the edge of the sink and wait, clasping my hands together in front of my mouth. The longer I sit there, urging myself to not just stare at the test—because that won’t make it develop faster—the clearer my feelings become.
I’m not freaked out about the possibility of being pregnant. I’m scared about the idea of accepting something like that could happen and then seeing a negative result. Because deep inside, there’s this innocent, sweet sense of joy I can’t wait to let out. This buzzing, giddy, intense happiness.
Fuck, I do want a child with Rowland. Of course I do!
I’ve wanted it pretty much since we started dating. The idea of him being the one, the father of my child, makes my insides turn into mush. But I never really let myself dream about it too much to prevent disappointment. After all, we’ve been going at it raw for months. I’m over thirty-two, and Rowland’s not the youngest either, so…if it were to happen, it would’ve already.
Being a parent to Mac, Mina, and Shawn has been fulfilling enough. That’s what I’ve told myself. I accepted that I wouldn’t experience life growing inside of me, a life that would be a piece of Rowland and everything I love about him so much, and I was fine with that. Or at least I thought I was.
My eyes start burning. Oh, I’m not fine with it. I’m—
When the digital test starts beeping, I jerk up. There’s no one to see me, so I grab it with the same absurd, pathetic desperation that I feel, agonizing over the result in the long, long seconds before my eyes land on the small screen.
I open my mouth wide, breathlessly staring at it.
“Oh shit.”
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Rowland
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Cutting down my work hours to spend more time with Dayton and the kids, even to actually pick them up from school here and there, has been a great decision in general. Right now, though…I really could do with being back in the office.
“Okay, okay! Enough of the screaming, please!” I shout while looking into the rearview mirror. I’m not even sure if my voice is clear enough to cut through the wailing happening in the back.
“Didn’t you play football today? Why aren’t you freaking tired, you maniac?” Mina barks at Mac who seems like a wild animal, growling and squealing as he’s trying to get back the Gamepad she took after telling him about eight times that it was too loud.
I raise a brow at her words. It’s a valid question.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I try again, wondering how Mother manages this. Shawn’s never been like this with Mina when they were little. “No electronics whatsoever for anyone if there isn’t only peace and quiet in three…two…” With each ominous, sharp word of my countdown, the hypersonic vibrations booming in the car go down a notch. “One!” Finally, Mac goes quiet with a low, disgruntled groan.
I exhale deeply, finally capable of hearing my thoughts and properly focusing on the road. We’re almost home, and I have no idea how I’ve managed to get us this far without crashing.
Just as I’m glancing in the rearview mirror again, Mina gives Mac a gleeful smirk. She quickly catches my eyes, sees my disapproving frown, and purses her lips. Reluctantly, she hands him back the Gamepad.
I hear Mac giggle with joy. He turns the volume down and continues playing while Mina goes on her phone like nothing happened.
Thank god.
We finally arrive home a few marvelously quiet minutes later. Dayton’s car is already in the driveway, which always makes me smile. I love coming home to him.
Home. Ever since he’s moved in, the house has become exactly that in so many senses. A home in that beautiful, pure sense and with a feeling that was there maybe only at the beginning, when we moved in with Hope, all hopeful and positive about the future.
Now, that life and light are back again, thanks to him.
When I open the door, I see color and personality instead of the monotone dullness of before. Dayton’s little knick-knacks are on the side table where the keys go. Most importantly, his plants are everywhere. Pretty much in every room of the house at this point. His monsteras and snake plants and little palms and so much more that I don’t even know the names of. It seems like leaving his small apartment behind has completely unlocked his addiction to buying more, now that he has space, and I’m not the one to stop him.
“Hey, Dayton,” Mina says while taking off her shoes.
I pull myself out of my head, pondering about the very beauty that’s in front of me, and see him sitting on the couch ahead. The way he’s just sitting there silently, staring ahead with this strangely empty glare, makes me pause.
Before I can say anything, Mac speeds past me, nearly knocking me over, and runs into the kitchen. As he does, Dayton turns his head to us, smiling faintly at Mina as a hello. There’s still something about his expression that immediately puts me on alert. The lack of his otherwise lively presence.
He looks alarmingly serious. A little pale, too.
Dropping my briefcase by the door, I quickly shed my jacket and put it on the hanger. “Is everything alright?” I ask while coming toward him.
The room smells of his pheromones. The kind a person releases when there’s too much happening inside—the kind brimming with emotions. What worries me is that I can’t quite tell what they are. There’s so much happening. Too many feelings mixing together.
Mina notices the weird atmosphere too, and slows on her way to the stairs.
“I think so,” Dayton whispers.
I get to him and quickly kneel, resting one hand on his knee and cupping his cheek with another. He doesn’t seem injured. “What is it?” I ask, darting my eyes across his face. “You’re freaking me out a bit.”
Even Mac scurries toward us from the kitchen. I see his wide eyes full of curiosity and concern peeking from behind Dayton’s head as he leans against the back of the couch.
Dayton takes a shaky breath, releasing even more of his scent, and looks down. I follow his eyes. He opens his hands in his lap, revealing a pregnancy test.
On the little screen, the text says ‘pregnant’.
As soon as that eight-letter word hits me, my cheeks itch with rushing blood and I shoot my head up at him. Dayton’s eyes are filling with tears now, and I’m pretty sure mine are, too. “Oh my god… Are you serious?!” I nearly shout, grabbing him by the shoulders.
He nods quickly, his bottom lip quivering. I squeeze him into a hug before we can both burst out crying. Our hearts pound against each other, nearly beating like one.
“What is that?” Mac asks.
I hear Mina rush in. “What?!” she screams. “Really?!”
Dayton starts laughing, nodding his head until I let him go out of the hug. I’m so happy that I can’t even pay attention to the kids and pull him in for a long, deep kiss.
“Daaaad! What does it mean?!” Mac keeps going, more and more frustrated, while Mina’s jumping up and down behind me, squealing.
“It means there’s gonna be a baby, you dummy!”
A part of me wishes he told me in private, because right now I just want to tangle up with him and kiss every inch of that beautiful, wonderful body. A body that’s carrying our child. Our child.
“Is Dayton gonna have a baby?” Mac blurts out excitedly.
Mina claps her hands. “He is! He is, he is, he is!”
Dayton has to push me away for me to stop kissing him. Laughing with tears in my eyes, I wipe his face before I do mine and rest our foreheads together. It feels like if I’m not glued to him or touching his skin, I might die. “We’re happy about this, right?” I whisper, realizing I might have checked up on that earlier. He nods quickly.
“Of course. Y-yeah,” he says, sounding a little in disbelief himself.
“I knew it was going to happen, Day. I told you,” I say, kissing him on the cheek. Then I finally release him so the kids can talk to him properly. They both appear thrilled by the news. I haven’t seen Mina so excited about anything in a long time, and Mac looks like he just had a bucket load of sugar. He hops over the back of the couch, landing next to us.
“Am I going to have a baby brother?”
Mina snorts, giving him a half-playful glare and pursing her lips. “Na-ah! You already have a brother. There are four boys in the house, so it’s only fair that it’s a girl!”
Mac grumbles, frowning.
“I’m not sure I can control that,” Dayton says with a smirk.
I still can’t believe it. I stare at him, trying to see or sense something that would tell me, but that’s not how things work. Not right now, anyway. I might be able to sense a slight shift in pheromones later in the pregnancy, but now is too early. He’s been saying he’s tired and sore, but I figured it was just the time of the year.
Mina sits on the edge of the couch next to us, arms crossed over her chest. “There are things you can eat that make you able to tell, right? Oh! Maybe there’s stuff you can eat that will help make it a girl!” she tells Dayton, flashing her eyes with interest. He only opens his mouth before she looks like a lightbulb just turned on in her mind and gets on her phone, no doubt searching for a way to ensure she gets a sister.
Dayton chuckles and glances back at me. “Are you happy about this?” he asks, a little uneasy. “This is really what you want, right? Not just because of—”
“Of course I am!” I blurt, squeezing his hands. It’s crazy he would even ask that.
“Me too,” he says with a nod and smiles with his head down. He brushes his fingers over mine as I hold him. “I just didn’t expect it. At all.”
“I know.” He hasn’t talked about kids much in these past months. I know it’s because he kind of lost hope, but we’ve done it so much that it would be impossible for this to not happen. I didn’t want to tell him that to prevent disappointment, but I knew it was going to come. I felt it in my bones.
“What’s bound to happen will always happen. My Dad used to say that. He never was a superstitious kind of person, but he believed that,” I say, studying Dayton’s face. Oh, he’s going to get even more handsome and full and radiant, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle that. “There’s nothing I want more than to grow our family with you.”
As his touched, teary-eyed smile grows, I place another kiss on his cheek while placing my hand on his stomach.
“You can’t tell yet,” he says against my lips.
“But they’re still in there,” I whisper with a wink. There’s so much swirling around my chest as I feel his warm skin under my palm. I feel proud and excited and nervous. I worry about Dayton’s comfort and the way the kids will get used to all these changes, and I worry about my own age and how that is going to affect me as a parent to this baby. But above all, I’m so fucking grateful and happy.
Mina next to us groans, eyes finally leaving her phone. “Ugh, apparently it’s only about what you eat before making the baby. What foods did you eat before— Ew, actually, nevermind,” she mutters to herself, shaking her head with a disturbed grimace.
I laugh. “You’ll love your sibling either way, right?”
“Duh.” Mina scoffs, looking at Dayton tenderly. “I guess it’s fine if it’s a boy…as long as he’s calmer than they usually are.” She flashes a scowl to Mac before completely switching emotions as another thought enters her mind. “Oh my god, the baby’s going to be so cute!” she gushes, dramatically putting her clasped hands to her cheek and aaaawing.
Mac pushes his way between me and Dayton, raising one of his brows inquisitively while glancing at his stomach like he has trouble believing there’s really something there.
Dayton turns to him with a smirk. “It’s just a fetus right now. You won’t be able to see anything for a while.”
“We need to call Shawn!” Mac shouts. “And Grandma! Who are we going to tell first, Daddy?!” he babbles, eagerly shaking my thigh to get my attention.
I rub the top of his head. “Slow down, little bean.”
“I’m not that little!” He pulls his brows together and puffs out his cheeks. “And I won’t be the smallest anymore, soon.”
“What’s he supposed to call you? Big bean?” Mina yaps at him with a mocking snort. “That sounds so dumb. Hm, then again, maybe it does fit.”
I turn to her. “Hey…”
“This house is going to get a lot crazier, huh?” Dayton concludes with a genuine, hearty laugh. He’s definitely right about that.
“You have no idea,” Mina says, rolling her eyes playfully, and heads back upstairs with her school bag. “Can I tell Mom?” she asks, turning on her heel at the bottom of the stairs.
Dayton and I share a brief, uneasy look. Things have been…amicable with Hope. But there’s no telling if this won’t shake them up. I hope not, but one never knows with her.
“Give us a few moments to breathe. We’ll call everyone in a bit, okay? You can tell your school friends,” he says. Mina shows us a thumbs-up and runs to her room.
I lean in to kiss him again—dear lord, I can’t stop kissing him—and brush my thumb against his lip before pulling away. “I can’t wait to experience the chaos and joy of it all with you, Dayton,” I whisper.
He fixates his deep brown eyes on me, and I see nothing but contentedness in his gaze. With a nod, he buries his face into my chest, and releases his lovely pheromones, telling me that whatever is to come, we’ll get through it together.