Page 59 of One Room Vacancy
That’s what breaks me.
Not the news, not the timeline.
Hearing him say that.
Because Harry’s not that old—he’s just tired, and maybe I am too. Or maybe I’m just scared that I’ve run out of places where I make sense.
I don’t want something new; I wantthis. I want to fight for the thing I already built, even if it never had my name on the building.
I tell him I have a headache and need to leave early. Since I almost never call in sick or leave early, he lets me go without question.
I walk home in a fog and find Gabe in the kitchen when I get there—barefoot, moving around like he’s trying not to make noise. There are vegetables on the cutting board and garlic on his fingers, and it smells like comfort, but I can’t feel it.
He looks up as I drop my keys into the bowl by the door.
“You okay?” he asks, already reaching for the second glass of wine on the counter.
I shake my head. “Harry’s selling the bar. Like, officially. He has the paperwork and everything.”
An exhausted sigh escapes my lungs as I plop down at the kitchen table, my eyes locked on the far wall. The wine sits untouched in front of me.
Gabe moves a little slower after that, quieter. He turns down the burner, sets the knife aside, wipes his hands on a dish towel, and walks over to sit across from me.
“When’s it happening?” he asks, voice low.
“End of the month.” I laugh, but it’s humorless. “Guess I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t. I thought he’d drag his feet.”
He nods, but doesn’t say “I’m sorry” or “That sucks,” just lets me talk. That’s the thing about Gabe—sometimes he pushes too hard, but sometimes he knows exactly when not to say anything.
I wrap both hands around the wine glass, but I still don’t take a sip. “He looked…sad,” I say. “Like he wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing, but he’d already said yes, so he couldn’t stop now.”
Gabe’s brow furrows. “You think he regrets it?”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. “I think it’s hitting him how much of himself is in that place, and now he has to walk away from it.”
I don’t say it, but I feel that too. Like I’m about to lose the only thing that’s ever made me feel steady. Like I’m watching my safety net burn and trying not to show that it hurts.
We sit in silence for a beat, the kind that doesn’t need to be filled.
Then, soft: “What are you gonna do?”
I shrug. “Keep showing up until they lock me out, I guess.”
He leans back in his chair, rubbing his palm across the back of his neck. “I’m sure they’ll keep the staff.”
I let out a breath through my nose, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“But?” he prompts.
I take a sip of the wine, finally, and then set the glass back down a little too hard. “But it won’t be the same. It’s going corporate. Menu changes. Dress code. Branded napkins and bullshit slogans taped to the mirror in the bathroom.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I keep going, the words tumbling out now.
“Harry let it be what it was, ya know? Loud. Messy. Weird. It had soul. And once a chain takes over, that goes away. I don’t want to work somewhere that treats it like a product instead of a place.”
He nods slowly, but I can already see the wheels turning behind his eyes. I know that look.
The quiet calculation. The trying-to-solve-it look.
