One More Touch (One For All #2)

Prologue

PARKER

Freshman Year

“Can I sit here?” a short brunette girl asks, then bites her lower lip.

I look curiously at the empty desk next to me in the lecture hall, wondering why she’d even bother asking. “Uh, sure.”

She smiles sweetly and takes the seat without a word.

I count to ten slowly, then adjust my glasses until they stop sliding down my nose.

I really need a new pair, but money is tight for my twin brother and me.

We subsist solely on the miraculous scholarship we somehow finagled out of Eastport University.

“Hey,” the girl whispers during the best part of the lecture.

I send her a severe look, hoping to silence her. “Yes?”

“I like your glasses.”

“Okay.”

She taps her pen on her notepad with an easy smile. “Are you free?”

I stare blankly at her. “For what?”

She stares back. “Like, for coffee?”

She is the third girl to ask this of me since I started at Eastport University.

Do they want to copy my homework? I ignore her question and return to listening to the professor.

I went my entire life without getting any attention, but suddenly college has brought up new opportunities.

I don’t care much for dating or hooking up, though I have to admit the attention is very flattering.

It’s nothing compared to the attention Jacob has always received.

Fraternal twins are a trip. I’m convinced he sucked up more nutrients in utero to give himself an unfair edge.

When I push through my dorm room later that beautiful September day, I don’t expect to see Jacob, looking exhausted, sitting on the bed with an open envelope cradled in his hands. He lifts his wary gaze to me, and a shiver rolls through me at the weight of it.

“What’s that? Is it about the life insurance payout?”

We got a small life insurance payout when our mom died a few years ago, but we didn’t gain access to it until we turned eighteen. Why a nurse had no will is beyond me. But between the insurance and the scholarship, I still don’t know why Jacob feels the need to work.

Jacob shakes his head tiredly. “No… it’s an invite to an exclusive club.”

I hold my hand out for the invite, lifting it up to read it over carefully. It’s for a date and time at the end of September, and there’s also two checks—four thousand dollars for both of us—tucked neatly in the envelope. My eyebrows lift into my hairline at the numbers on the checks.

“Seems like free money,” I say as I hand him back the envelope.

Jacob scowls. “Don’t be flippant. There’s no way we can go. Right?”

Well. I’m apt to say yes because it’s money, and it seems sort of harmless. The address is for the other side of Eastport in the evening, so the worst part will be that Jacob will have to miss a shift at the diner.

“I think we should go.”

Jacob groans and tosses himself back on the too tiny twin bed, his feet dangling precariously over the edge. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Well, we don’t lie to each other either. We’re going.”

Jacob winces. “Well… technically this is the second letter.”

I narrow my eyes, pushing my glasses up my nose. “Explain.”

“We got one a week or so ago, but I ignored it. Also, the checks were only for two thousand each then.”

“What the fuck, dude?”

Jacob looks appropriately scolded. “It just felt fake.”

“Okay, well, we’re going now. Thanks for hiding it so we got a pay increase, I guess.”

I toss my bag onto my bed, grab my shower caddy, and take the hottest shower of all existence in the communal showers. When I return, Jacob has taken his own shower and is lying on the bed with his hair damp and his fingers loosely tangled over his abdomen.

“Chin up, bro, free money,” I tell him.

But Jacob doesn’t reply, which has become par for the course lately.

I don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I’m not used to seeing him so sullen.

Jacob is usually the life of the party, the one everyone wants, and I’ve spent much of my life pretending to be as much like him as I can, despite wanting to be the opposite.

I want to be at home curled up with a book, glasses on, and a mug of tea in my hand.

But that’s not the cool guy kind of evening to have it seems. Jacob’s the cool one.

He always has been, with his effortless looks and easygoing personality.

The one everyone wanted in high school, the star athlete, and I was the twin who just barely held up to him.

“I guess we’re going,” Jacob says as we both cuddle into our beds for the night.

“We’re definitely going.” And that’s that.

Jacob swears in irritation while hopping over a puddle in the dark.

The address is a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, and the sky has a thin layer of clouds covering the stars.

We both dressed in casual clothes as if prepared for a fight.

We’re both trained in martial arts, so at least if something crazy goes down, we can defend ourselves.

The warehouse is empty but for a laptop and briefcase resting on a chair in the center of the room.

Looking down at my watch, I realize we’re a few minutes early, and maybe everyone else has decided to be on time or, more likely, late to sus out if we’ve been invited here to be hacked apart and sold for pieces on the black market.

“At least we’re first,” I say brightly.

Jacob hums absently as his gaze sweeps across the room, probably carefully noting all the various exits around us.

A few moments later, the sound of someone else opening the door has us both spinning around.

A blond man who’s the perfect copy of a Greek god walks through the doors.

He’s about our age, just a little shorter than us, with perfectly styled naturally blond hair, and the way he carries himself tells me he’s probably the one in charge of this entire thing.

“Sup?” Jacob calls out.

The man waves as he approaches. “You got the invite too?”

“Yeah, you’re not in charge?” I ask, leveling him with a suspicious look.

He rears back in surprise. “Why would you think I’m in charge? I got the invite too, just like you. I’m Hayden.”

The three of us shake hands like very mature adults.

We make idle chitchat awkwardly, but I zone out a little bit, more focused on the computer with the screen saver in the center of the room.

The door opens again to reveal a tall young guy with light brown skin, dark, slightly wavy hair, and a permanent-looking scowl.

“So, we fighting?” the new guy calls out.

Hayden frowns at him. “Why do you think we’re fighting?”

“I mean, why else would I be here with two thousand dollars deposited in my bank account?” he asks, but all I can think about is how he got shortchanged because Jacob and I each got four thousand dollars.

He finishes crossing the warehouse and comes to a stop in front of us, surveying the room, his curious gaze landing on the computer just like mine had.

Suddenly, the screen saver flashes in the dark, a countdown appearing on the screen.

My heart starts to race a little from the fear of the unknown, but also from excitement that maybe I’ll finally get to do something other than go to school and wait for Jacob to reappear in the dorm.

The new guy glances down at his watch, then glances back up, catching my gaze.

“I’m Parker.” I hold my hand out for him to shake. I wince from the strength of his grip and fight the urge to pull away. “Nice handshake.”

“Ditto,” he says. “I’m Dante.”

“What’s your degree?”

“Engineering,” Dante says. “You?”

“English lit,” I answer, then point at my brother. “That’s Jacob, his degree is in biomedical engineering. Blond god over here is majoring in math.”

“Math?” Dante asks curiously.

“I like numbers,” Hayden says with a lazy shrug. “I’m Hayden.”

Dante hums and crosses his arms over his broad chest. The countdown hits nine and Hayden gasps in what sounds a little like surprise from beside Jacob, but all my attention gets diverted to the computer.

No person comes up on the screen, just an audio application that shows the decibels of the person speaking.

“Thank you for being good boys and showing up,” the computerized voice says. “I’ve chosen all of you because you have a skill set I can use, and those skills are for me to know only. I’d like to start a team that gives the bad people what they deserve.”

“Like Robin Hood?” I ask curiously.

The message just keeps going without any pause for my question. Great. Even a computer ignores me.

“Four missions a month, maybe more. A house will be provided for you to live in that’s more secure than any other house in Eastport. A stipend for school. If you want to kill a bad guy, it’ll be cleaned up, and you won’t be caught.”

A house to live in… a stipend for school. That means no more extra job for Jacob.

“All right, well, this was fun,” Dante says while making a show of clapping his hands. “Story time and two thousand dollars. Any of you want to spar with me so this night isn’t a total waste?”

The three of us stare at him in confusion because it seems we’re all actually considering it. Jacob roughly grabs me and tugs me over to the other side of the room.

“I don’t think we should do this, it sounds too criminal,” Jacob says out of the corner of his mouth.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” I whisper furiously.

“You seriously want to be like little miniature John Wicks?”

“Yeah! Kind of!”

Jacob rears back. “Really?”

“Well! It’s better than what we’re doing now and sometimes it’s not enough. I want to do more. Maybe we can get back at some people and feel better about life in general.”

“You don’t feel good about life?” Jacob asks quietly, sounding a little afraid.

Now is not the time for this discussion.

“Jacob, our mom is dead and we’re just fucking going through life like a couple of aimless kids.

Yeah, maybe this will give us purpose. And also the money would be nice because I don’t know how long the life insurance money will sustain us. Mom would want us to be taken care of.”

Jacob basically growls. “Low blow, bro.”

I shrug, uncaring. “I’m doing this with or without you.”

“Fuck.”

“Also,” I say, squinting his way, then squinting back at the other two who are standing awkwardly beside the computer. “No hooking up with either of them.”

Jacob groans in agony. “The blond though!”

“No.”

“Fine.”

I grin, happy to have gotten my way, which is actually pretty easy for me to do with Jacob because he’s a giant pushover for someone he loves.

We end our side talk and return to the others.

I feel pleased, but Jacob looks a little put out, which is funny because he’ll probably end up enjoying this more than any of us.

Give Jacob something to succeed at and suddenly he’ll be the best.

Jacob squats down to grab the briefcase from under the laptop.

A small sticky note that has all four of our names written on it is stuck to the briefcase.

He clicks open the sides and reaches inside, pulling out four manila folders that he slowly hands to each of us, then lowers the briefcase to the ground.

I hold my manila folder in my hands like it might bite me, sneaking glances at the rest of the guys.

Jacob stares down at the papers in his hands like he’s been handed the codes to the nukes, but when I lean over to sneak a glance, he quickly snatches them away and mouths later.

Okay. Ignoring him for now, I tentatively open my folder.

Inside is the lease to a house near campus that’s ours scot-free.

There’s also some information about a monthly stipend for a couple grand a month, the keys to a Mercedes, and a specific note about me undergoing training for rifle use.

Does everyone else have the same notes? By Jacob’s face I’d assume not because there’s nothing particularly special about mine, until I flip to the last page.

There’s a note about me going on separate missions from everyone else, after we’re trained and have been on a handful of missions together. That seems… different.

“I got keys for a Mercedes?” I say in wonder, lifting the keys up for everyone to see. “Anyone else get a car?”

Hayden shakes his head but holds up a pair of house keys. “I got keys to the house.”

“Well,” Jacob says blandly, gaze flitting between the rest of us. “Hi, roommates.”

Suddenly, everything settles a little inside me, and I feel a little less restless. For once something cool is happening to me. Maybe I can reshape myself into someone worth attention. A little killing for good never hurt anyone. I’m going to be so cool.