It's Sunday after church at The Barn, and as usual, the whole household is hopping.
Members of the Jubilee Deliverance fellowship always come here after service, piling their families inside its homely environs. It's not like Genesis doesn't like seeing them all when they come here every week. It's just that every time they do, she ends up running about the place like a madwoman. Helping her mom prepare the meal, washing dishes, saying hello, smiling, always smiling, making sure her little siblings aren't getting up to various forms of mischief...
Gee wishes someone would ask her whether she wanted to spend every Sunday running around like a chicken with her head cut off like this while all the men watch tourneytub on the T.V., but no one ever does.
What if she wanted to watch the games right along with them?
Perhaps this routine is just Genesis's lot in life. She should accept it and move on.
Still, by the time the last spray of Sunday evening sunshine flings itself across the farmland sky, Genesis finds herself pretty tired and irritated, as always. She's waving goodbye to the last of the faithful when a familiar car pulls up into the driveway beside her own. Gee manages to dig down deep and find another store of energy within her.
It's an effort, but she does.
Nate Jessup climbs out of his car, slamming the door behind him with careless grace and a disarming smile. The autumn wind cuts across his brown hair and his blue eyes practically light up once he sees her.
Genesis leaps off the porch and runs towards him. She kicks up gravel with her bare feet but hardly even notices. She throws her arms around Nate and kisses him. After their last porch-side conversation, Gee wants to be sure she doesn't appear frosty towards him in any way.
She also hopes he can't taste Sage Sawyer on her lips.
They pull away from each other, Nate's arms still wrapped around Gee's dusty overalls.
"I didn't know you were coming here tonight." She says.
"Yeah, I didn't either. I decided to be spontaneous." Nate says.
Genesis takes his hand in hers and leads him over to the front porch. Unlike the back porch's love seat, the O'Tooles' front porch has a few rocking chairs. Nate and Gee take their seats on two chairs wobbling beside each other.
Nate knows the O'Toole clan's rules. No boyfriends in the house without adult supervision.
Nate and Gee talk. Of Tourneytub, mostly. An hour passes in peace. Early evening moonlight begins spilling over them, casting the whole scene in a picturesque glow.
But then Gee's phone buzzes.
She pulls it from the pocket of her overalls.
It's from Sage.
See you tonight.
Genesis looks up into Nate's steely gaze. It's almost the same color as the moon looming over them. She rises from her rocking chair.
She hopes it's too dark for him to see her blush.
"Uh, sorry Nate. I know you came all this way, but I gotta go." She says.
"Wait. What?" Nate's brow furrows into a trench. His eyes turn to ice.
"I dunno. Some kinda Jackalopes team meeting tonight." Gee says. She's not exactly lying. She's just leaving out the part where the girl she likes to kiss will be right there at the meeting with her...
"But I came out all this way to spend time with you. Besides, who schedules a team meeting on a Sunday night?"
Gee shrugs. "Coach Wu, apparently. Look I'm sorry you came out all this way. I'm glad you came. I love talking with you. You know that. But I forgot I had this meeting scheduled and you didn't tell me you were coming and-"
"Fine. Whatever. Just go." Nate folds his arms and kicks off the creaking wooden floor with his well worn boots. His chair rocks back and forth with an almost aggressive rhythm.
"C'mon Nate. Don't be like this. You know how important the Jackalopes are to me. How much I love playing tourneytub. I made a commitment. 'Let your no be no and your yes be yes,' right?" Gee says.
And as Gee says this, she begins to finally realize just how important this game is to her. Not just Sage, but tourneytub as a whole. How much it beats in time to her own heart's yearning. What it means to jockey Phoenix Beacon around a chaotic court with skill and precision. The satisfying POOF of a pacified humor. The unleashed roar of the spectators deafening her ears once the Jackalopes finally come up triumphant. Genesis O'Toole has never known a truer freedom anywhere in her life.
Except when she kisses Sage.
Gee pushes the thought away. Not now. Not now!
She grabs a pair of shoes, which had been left strewn on the porch, pulls them on, and heads toward the driveway. She doesn't even know if they're actually her shoes or a younger sibling's, but it's too late to turn back now. Nate rises from his chair and follows her, not unlike a wounded dog.
He snorts. "Don't quote scripture to justify your own selfish desires."
"Selfish desires!?" Gee spins around halfway to her own car, pulling blonde wisps out of her eyes so he has no chance to miss their emerald fury. "What's that supposed to mean? All I'm saying is the Jackalopes are just as important to me as the Nephilim are to you. I'd totally understand if you needed to leave for your own team meeting. So why can't you?"
"This is different." Nate comes closer.
"How is this in any way different?" Gee pulls her keys out of her pocket and jams them into the driver's side door of her jeep.
"Because," Nate hesitates, fumbling with both his words and his hands, "I wouldn't do that to you. I wouldn't leave you. I'd never leave you. I choose you over tourneytub, any day of the week."
Gee freezes in the midst of swinging open the door. She already has one foot up on the running board. She turns to him. Sighs, heavily.
"I just- I just need some room for me, Nate."
On this final note, Gee hoists herself inside the vehicle, slams the door shut, fires up the ignition, and peels her pure white jeep out of the driveway.
Only it doesn't feel quite so pure to her anymore...
Nate is left in her wake. Genesis can see him reflected in her front mirror but she doesn't stop. It kills her to see his baby blues welling up with sorrow behind her. But in the end, all it does is make her press her foot down harder on the pedal.
The truth is, if Gee were being completely honest with herself, she'd choose Sage and tourneytub over Nate Jessup.
Any day of the week.
***
Photo courtesy of Milan Popovic on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/@itsmiki5. Edited.