Page 25

When no further explanation came I took the mug, passed a fiver over the counter and turned back to Hywel.

As I picked my way past chintzy leather chairs and tables made of pallets I could feel the eyes of everyone on me.

In the opposite corner to Hywel were Beca and Prentis.

Beca trained her beady eyes on me and Prentis’ eyes were trained on me over the top of his mug.

Hywel didn’t even have the bloody grace to look up at me. Just kept typing away at his laptop with his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. I cleared my throat, and he looked up. I felt like he was deliberately trying to drive me insane. And it was working.

“May I?” I asked.

“Sure.” Hywel moved away some papers from the side of the table with the empty chair and I sat in it, spilling a bit of coffee when I put it down because my hands had started to tremble.

Click-click-click . Hywel carried on typing and it was infuriating. I tried my best to keep my cool, to take a deep breath in and let a longer one out. When that didn’t work and I couldn’t even pick up my cup because my hand was shaking so much, I finally spoke.

“Won’t you just fucking look at me?” I said. Perhaps a bit louder than intended because the little noise in the cafe stopped completely. Hywel smirked and closed his laptop before finally looking at me with those beautiful green eyes.

I pushed the letter over the table at him. “Please, tell me. What is this meant to be?”

Hywel’s expression turned serious. “An olive branch, Mac. An apology. It’s me…atoning. For being an idiot.”

“You think you’re the idiot here?” I asked. “I’m the one who took your car apart after a fight. I’m the one who got us both drunk…twice…and…”

Hywel’s smirk had returned and I realised the whole cafe was still listening.

“Haven’t you got anything better to listen to?

” I asked the woman sitting opposite, realising too late she was one of my old primary school teachers.

“Sorry, Mrs Lucas,” I said as she tutted and turned away.

Her head was still cocked like she was listening though.

When I turned back to Hywel he was packing papers into his bag.

He took his laptop, slipped it into the case and jerked his head toward the door.

I followed him, grabbing the letter quickly as he put on his coat and left at speed.

I nodded awkwardly at Prentis and Beca before leaving, just aware that they might be laughing at me over their coffee cups and cake.

“Have fun!” shouted James just as the door closed with a soft tinkle behind me.

Hywel was just outside, laptop bag swinging from his shoulder. I rubbed my arms. Even through the leather jacket it was a bloody cold day. “Want to go for a drive?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. For the first time I spotted what looked like uncertainty crossing his face. Either way, he followed me and got into the passenger side of the car. I fired up the engine and drove, not entirely sure where we were going.

“Kidnapping me?” he asked with a small giggle.

I kept my eyes on the road but passed him the letter. “Read it for me please.”

“You’ve read it already,” he said.

“I know. I just want to hear the words from your mouth. So I know I’m not…”

“Going mad? Fine.” Hywel opened up the letter and started to read.

“I, M. Neal of Messrs Neal and Co Solicitors… I can skip that bit, right? Anyway… hereby transfer ownership of the property known as The Garage on Pembroke Lanes to Mr Macsen Lewis Lloyd for the sum of ￡1, paid by Caroline Lloyd in advance of the notice above being delivered… that what you wanted?”

I looked at my own knuckles going white on the steering wheel. “Just…fucking why? ” I asked.

“As I said. Atonement. For never apologising for being a prick years ago. And I’ve treated you like rubbish despite the fact that we were becoming…

friends. I held up an unfair deal even though I was planning on screwing you over with the sale, and I used you for labour when I had fuck all means to pay.

I hope that this goes some way to forgiveness. ”

“So the garage? It’s actually mine?”

“Yep, though your mum paid the pound we had to charge so you might have to give that back to her.” I didn’t even have to look over to hear the smile in his voice.

Without thinking, I’d driven us up toward Tudor’s hotel, but then headed past it up the dirt track toward the cliffs.

I was glad I’d brought my little car. The gravel bouncing up the sides would have been sacrilegious toward the beautiful Aston Martin.

My car was born for this kind of scrappy driving.

“So you’ve given me my garage, what about everyone else? Still going to sell all their properties from underneath them and fuck off back to London?”

“Ah. Well. Thing is…it wasn’t just you. I’ve gifted everyone their shops back. You were right. It was stupid of me to come back here like I’d done anything to help.”

“So…what do you have now?” I asked after a second.

We came to the end of the dirt track, looking out at the emptiness in front of us.

Without much thought, and without waiting for an answer, I opened my door and stepped outside.

The snow had melted mostly but the ground still felt hard underfoot.

I heard Hywel’s door close behind me too and he drew level with where I’d walked not far in front of the car.

The cliffs that overlooked Cardigan Bay were stunningly beautiful and terrifying if you stepped too close.

The feeling that you could fall at any time, that you might drop and have the endless churning ocean swallow you up if you fell from a precarious edge.

Naturally, as a teenager I’d walked the length and breadth of these cliffs, sometimes centimetres from the edge.

Now, having had enough bloody heart attacks for one day, I stood a few metres back and admired the winter sun glinting off the sea.

“So…what now?” I asked. Only silence in response. When I looked at Hywel, he was absently picking at his nails. Well, he was giving a charade of absence. No one concentrated so hard on that when the beauty of the Irish sea was facing them. “Do you…not have a plan?”

Hywel coughed quietly. “Not no plan. Alaw and Alun want me involved in this business venture of theirs.”

“And just how are you planning on doing that without any money?”

“I’ll work something out,” Hywel said quietly.

“You really have thrown it all away haven’t you? You bloody idiot.” I couldn’t help but chuckle, and when I looked over at him again Hywel’s cheeks were red. Whether because of the wind or embarrassment I didn’t know. But I suspected.

“I just…didn’t want to be the man I’d become. I was always trying to do the best, make the most. And after a while that gets exhausting. And then when Brian fucked me over… I wanted to get my own back. Wanted to go back to London and shove in his face that I could build myself up from nothing.”

“And now?” I asked.

“And now, I want nothing more than to have a nap. And after I’ve had a nap, or two, or twelve, I’ll re-evaluate. But I want to be around people who love me, people I can trust. And this seems to be the right place to do that.”

“Build your empire from Prentis’ sofa,” I joked. I watched him turn even redder.

“Fucking hell, I’m graduating to the spare room when Beca moves out. Promise.”

I laughed with him then, and everything seemed to slot into place. Without the millstone of his position over me hanging in the air between us, I could feel the easy relationship we’d started to feed the beginnings of now really starting to take its place.

“Fuck!” I blurted. “I didn’t thank you! Thank you!”

Hywel laughed again. “No problem. It’s only my whole life thrown away.”

I sensed that behind the laugh there was some pain. Even if he wanted to start again, to go from business empire to employee at a small town consultancy must hurt just a little bit.

“You know, you don’t have to stay on the sofa til Beca moves out. You can always stay with me. I don’t take up too much of the bed. And I don’t snore.”

Hywel snorted. “If your behaviour after a drink is any indication of how you are sober, I highly doubt that. Noisiest fucking starfish I’ve ever met.”

It was my turn to feel my cheeks heat. “Fine. Maybe I snore a bit. And maybe I starfish. No pressure though. You can always stay on the sofa at mine too. I’m sure it’s much comfier than Prentis’.”

“You do have a much comfier sofa,” Hywel agreed.

Things went quiet for a moment, except for the sound of waves below us and the wind whistling through the grass. It felt like we were on the edge of something and I just didn’t know how to talk to Hywel.

His fingers brushed again mine, and for a second I felt like it might have been an accident. But then they brushed again, slower, and lingered.

“What is this?” I asked. I knew I was being quiet, even though someone probably couldn’t hear us talking from even a couple of metres away. If there had been anyone else around at all.

Hywel’s fingers brushed up against mine once more and I took the initiative, grabbing them, Perhaps a little roughly. But a glance at him showed a little smile playing at the edge of his lips.

“I don’t know,” said Hywel. “But I know that it’s been weird, this last few days without you. Was almost getting used to your grumpy arse.”

“I’m a very accommodating arse, I’ll have you know,” I said. I regretted my words as soon as they were out and I heard Hywel chuckling. “Shut up.”

“Not a chance.” Hywel squeezed my hand, and I turned to face him properly now.

He was looking into my eyes with his, eyes that reflected the colour of the sea below.

Behind them, something just as deep and just as turbulent was stirring.

Fuck me , I hadn’t been a poet before. But that man could inspire an illiterate to write.

“Everything OK back there?” Hywel asked, smiling gently.