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Don, perched on a barstool that has already been marked with blue painter’s tape for donation, points his paper cup at me. “This is why I disagree with the new trend of well-lit bars. You need something to hide the filth.”

Landy snorts. “That should’ve been our slogan.”

The Man Cave is half gone already. Not closed—gone.

A decade and a half of late nights, bad decisions, and first and last dates. Of drag disasters and bad karaoke. Grieving men, laughing men, lonely men pretending they only came for one drink.

Going, going…

Landy sets a neon sign near the door and wipes his forehead. “Where do you want the leather daddy painting?”

“Storage,” I say.

Don gasps. “You want to lock away that masterpiece?”

“Where do you suggest I hang it, the dining room?”

Don swivels toward me. “How about over my bed?”

Landy grins. “Storage, Paul?”

“Storage,” I repeat.

I stand in the middle of the room and try to feel okay about all of it.

That has been my project lately: trying to feel okay.

I pick up a stack of coasters from the end of the bar, then set them down because I have no idea where they go.

Don watches me. He’s been doing that all afternoon.

“You look terrible,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“I mean it.”

“You’re too kind to me.” I take a breath and reach for a box labeled QUESTIONABLE. “I’m fine.”

“You were fine a month ago. This is… functional. At best.”

Outside, someone drops something metal onto the sidewalk. It clatters hard. A moving truck idles at the curb. A dark-haired bartender whose name I should remember—Craig, Greg, something—carries out a box of mixers with both arms braced underneath.

Renny opened this place because he said Riverside needed a bar of its own. A queer cousin to the over-loud, over-priced bars in Louisville. I told him there weren’t nearly enough gays in Riverside to fill it. He proved me wrong, of course. He built it, they came. And then, with time, they left again.

He loved this room. I loved him loving it. That was easier than loving the bar itself. Maybe that’s why I can let it go now.

Don slides off the stool and comes to stand beside me. We watch Landy carry a box up the moving truck’s ramp.

Don speaks softly. “Puerto Vallarta might help.”

I keep looking at the moving truck. “That’s the plan.”

“But is right now the best time?”

I look at him.

He raises both hands. “I mean emotionally. I love fleeing the country as a concept.”