Dare You To Move

Prologue

Wet clothes, drenched hair, running makeup. It's not exactly how Elli wanted her day to end but here she was, completely soaked head to toe standing outside of her apartment fumbling with her key. The worst storm Chicago has seen in years is ripping through the city. Thunder is rumbling windows and lightning is cracking across the skies, striking stray trees no doubt. A downpour makes it nearly impossible to see more three feet in from of one's face. It's a terrible storm and Elli was stuck in it, just walking from the bus stop to her apartment. Now, she's stuck shivering while trying to unlock the door.

Elli finally gets the door unlocked and the apartment is so much warmer than the hallway. It's a huge sigh of relief as she kicks off her soaked shoes. Elli's arms hug around herself, rubbing either arm and trying to gain more warmth while her attention is pulled away from her chatting teeth. Instead, it's brought to the living room where her roommate, Parker, is seated tuning his guitar. She smiles to herself and walks up to him. His dark curls are nice and neat, something that only ever happened when he actually bothered with his hair. Which, also just means he had plans that involved him wearing more than a hoodie and sweatpants with a snapback.

"Whatcha doing?" Elli asks as she rests her hands on the back of the couch, each on either side of his shoulders.

He jumps with her words, the guitar making a strange strummed sound. Elli wasn't supposed to be home for hours and whenever he's involved with his guitar, it's like the rest of the world doesn't even exist. It's just him and his music. Parker never heard Elli coming inside despite her being less than quiet.

"Fuck you." He mutters, holding the guitar with one hand and turning to face her, resting his arm on the back of the couch. "What happened to you?" his brows furrow but there's a teasing smile on his face, likely ready to start making jokes about her looking like a drowned rat.

"Walked through a puddle."

"Some puddle." Parker chortles, a curl falling onto his forehead as he shakes his head.

"Can you not hear the storm outside?" Elli counters.

"Figured you'd have grabbed an umbrella, that what you're always tellin' me, ya?" Parker snarks but that smirk is glued to his face.

Elli sucks on her teeth before narrowing her eyes. "What were you gonna play?" She changes subject, eyes flickering to the guitar.

"Wasn't." Parker sighs, turning away from her and getting to his feet.

"Sounded like it." Elli crosses her arms over her chest and a chill runs down her spine.

"Uh..." Parker rolls his shoulders as he puts the guitar on its stand, securing it. "I, well, I kind of had a gig....kind of but the storm knocked their power out." Parker says as he turns around and Elli's never seen him so disappointed.

All Parker wants to do is play music. That's it. He's a music major for fuck's sake. His dream is just to play his guitar and sing. He wants to host a radio show but he wants to make something of himself with music. It's his dream, his passion and this was his first "kind of" gig. He chose not to tell Elli about it because he believes in jinxing things. But, it doens't matter now.  

"I'm sorry, Parker." Elli's eyes sadden as she watches him rub the back of his neck.

"Always, next time." Parker huffs. "Didn't you have class?" He points to her, changing subject.

"Yep but uh, look outside. I came home. I'm not getting stuck in that. It's only supposed to get worse." Elli points her thumb to the windows.

Parker side smiles and shakes his head. "Well, get some dry clothes on and we'll turn something on."