Page 20

Macsen

My head hurt, my tongue felt fuzzy and I was shivering. At twenty-six years of age my hangovers always felt like I’d imagined they would be when I was forty.

I’d obviously gotten naked before clambering into bed, as I often did, and was laid out above the sheets. It was freezing in the room, the window had been left open and hangover horn had me solid as a rock. I idly reached down with a clumsy hand to play with myself.

There was movement directly to my right, and I felt like I jumped out of my skin.

It was Hywel. I was lying in bed next to Hywel. He was bare-chested and under the covers. Sixteen year old me might have pulled a party popper and WhatsApped all of his friends. Twenty-six year old me just about managed to keep all that excitement inside.

“What the fuck…?” I muttered. I wasn’t sure if I expected an answer, but he definitely gave one.

“I walked you home after your stunning rendition of Staying Alive and made sure we didn’t get hit by any tractors,” said Hywel.

“Fuck. Did we?” I asked.

“Do you still have all your limbs? Don’t you worry.” Hywel laughed. I hated how he still looked attractive hungover in the morning.

“No,” I said, “I meant did we…” my suggestion hung in the air,

“Fucking hell, what do you take me for?” asked Hywel.

“I got you home and into bed. You might have gotten naked and begged me to, and I quote, ‘fuck me ‘til tomorrow’, but I have a better sense of morals than that. I wasn’t going to turn down a chance for a cuddle in bed rather than on the sofa though.”

I wanted to put my head under the blankets in embarrassment.

Normally if I woke up next to a man, it’d be post shag either at his house or at mine.

And I could get out pretty sharpish or have him leave as soon as I wanted.

To wake up next to Hywel, in a flat we shared?

I had no idea what to do. Where we stood. Or lay, as it were.

“So…are we OK?” I asked.

“As long as I get to keep last night’s images in my head,” said Hywel. “I seem to remember you telling Daniel and Tudor that they wouldn’t last because Daniel would eventually star in a film with Brad Pitt and fuck him.”

Fuck . “OK, I’ll text them both today. Anything else?”

“I think you made reference to Llywelyn’s massive trouser snake and how you couldn’t imagine James taking it. You also compared it with mine girth-wise. I don’t know how we’ll live that one down. And you insisted we pull them out to compare. We didn’t, and you cried.”

I groaned, and pulled the duvet up to my head. It wasn’t like me to get so drunk I forgot everything. I loved a good piss up or party. I hated losing control.

“Come on, let’s get you a coffee.” Hywel slapped my thigh and stood up.

He was wearing just a bright pink pair of boxer briefs and I could see his morning wood outlined in them.

But he wasn’t trying to come on to me or ask me to go for a round now I’d sobered up.

I pulled on a pair of pyjama pants and followed him, my eyes fixated on that round arse as it led me into the kitchen.

Hywel looked up at me as he made the coffees and dumped an extra two sugars in mine.

“How come you’re so chipper anyway?” I asked. “Surely we were drinking the same amount.”

“Nope,” he said, passing me the mug. I inhaled the steam gratefully and held it up to my face as I waited for it to cool down enough to drink. “Someone had a lot more shots than I to drink as Never Have I Ever got a hell of a lot more targeted. I got out of it mostly unscathed.”

“I don’t even want to know what you found out about me,” I groaned.

“Enough to know never to let you near any man I’ve ever met.” Hywel laughed, pulling bread from the cupboards and popping it into the toaster. He moved over to the thermostat and turned on the heating whilst we waited, then grabbed honey from another cupboard.

I felt my mouth lift up at the edges involuntarily despite the pounding in my head. It was weird, living with someone who’s made themselves so at home in my place. But I kind of liked it. I hadn’t been so looked after in a long time.

Once the toast had popped up, Hywel slathered it with honey and pushed both slices towards me. “You look like you need it first,” he said.

I wandered over to the sofa with my toast and my dignity just about intact. I was starting to get flutters in my chest whenever Hywel took care of me, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Could we talk about something else too?” Hywel had come to sit next to me with his own plate of toast.

“Sure,” I said. He looked nervous, and took one bite of the toast before shaking his head and putting the whole plate down on the coffee table.

“I just wanted to thank you for last night. For saying you’d seen me in that coat before. It’s not that I’m ashamed of buying from a charity shop…”

“You are, though,” I interjected.

“Yes. A bit. But that’s not the main thing.

It’s just getting used to it. Believe me, even when I get some money back it won’t be enough to maintain my old lifestyle.

I’ll be heading back to London and staying in a situation not unlike this one, probably in someone’s shoebox two bedroom flat.

I won’t be able to afford the latest in designer clothes, or nice watches or Michelin star meals.

So I’ll be wearing a lot more old coats in future. ”

“Welcome to the life of a pauper,” I said with a smile.

Something had tugged at my heart at the mention of him heading back to London.

His socked feet had unconsciously covered my bare ones where they rested on the sofa, keeping just a little bit of me warm as the old boiler did its best to heat up the flat.

“You’re hardly a pauper, are you?” Hywel asked. I got the sense it was a rhetorical question but I answered him anyway.

“Compared to what you had? Have? Yes. Living somewhere like Hiraeth can be a bit like living next to a rich country when you’re a poor one. I’m well off here, but if I ever wanted to move out to London or even Cardiff, it would be like starting from square one all over again.”

Hywel hummed in agreement and took another bite of his toast. “You’re right,” he finally said after what felt like forever. “I’ve got connections, I have friends and old colleagues who can give me a hand in getting back on my feet.”

“Exactly.” I’d won the argument — whatever argument that might be — but I still felt a bit out of place.

“Anyway. Much to do.” I got up, my head still pounding despite the injection of sustenance and tea.

I needed to do something with my hands to stop the hangover shakes and I knew I’d likely have a couple of drive-ins this week from people who had forgotten to get their cars serviced in the run up to Christmas.

I pulled on a pair of overalls from Hywel’s washing pile and walked past where Hywel was sat on the sofa to walk downstairs to the garage.

It was weird how domestic everything had become - Hywel washing and folding the clothes, making me breakfast. Though I’d been coping by myself before, it was nice to have an extra pair of hands around the flat. For domestic chores and the odd wank.

Though even that was weird for me. I’d had a hot-as-fuck blowjob from the man and he’d fucked me into submission in the back of my car, then the joint hungover shower…

but that was it. We’d not shagged, blown, anything since.

And I wanted Hywel. I wanted more of what we’d had.

I just didn’t feel any pressure to do any of that, and it seemed like he didn’t either.

With so many thoughts running through my head I went through the motions of setting everything up for the morning like I was on autopilot.

I flicked the heater in the corner on and it did its best to battle the breeze coming in from outside.

The clouds above were bleak and still threatening us with a snow but hadn’t yet bothered.

Snow was great as a kid, but living somewhere like this it was bound to be isolating.

Though being snowed in with Hywel didn’t seem so bad. As long as we had enough food, lube and coffee…and vodka, maybe. We still hadn’t had sex completely sober. Sober sex might make us confront things we didn’t want to otherwise.

I looked over guiltily at his car. There were scratches left on the front fender and by the headlight but otherwise everything had been fixed up or replaced. All it would take was to finish sanding down that area and a respray with primer and paint.

In all honesty though, I wanted him here.

It wasn’t about the money anymore. It was the fear that if Hywel had such easy access to his car again he might decide to scrape together the money to go and stay at Tudor’s hotel, or somewhere in Aberystwyth.

Or even get back to London quicker, if the money he was waiting on was returned to him.

And I was enjoying having him here way too much.

I was fucked . Pull yourself together, Mac. Just get the work done and let him do what he needs to do.

I got to work on his car as there was nothing else to do.

Over the course of an hour, I sanded down and buffed down any scratches to the metal beneath, then taped up the headlight and surrounding areas before getting the can of primer out to spray it.

I pulled a mask out of my pocket and fit it haphazardly over my beard before starting to spray.

As an apprentice I’d never been all that big on safety until Steff pulled me aside one day and told me that his hacking cough wasn’t because of some 40-a-day habit, but repeated exposure to paint and petrol fumes. I’d worn a mask ever since.

I sprayed liberally, took a step backward to check for any imperfections and bumped into a warm form behind me. I turned with canister in hand, ready to…prime…any assailant, and Hywel laughed at me. He gently pushed the canister down and away from his face with one finger.