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Hywel

That didn’t mean we’d suddenly become friends, or even close.

It was like we cohabited the flat without ever really…

talking. I didn’t know why he was living in the shitty little flat above the garage, and he didn’t know why I was here.

His sarcasm certainly hadn’t stopped either, but for brief moments of sincerity when he thanked me for meals. He was still being a bit of a prick

For work, I’d done very little. I’d spent most of the week panicking and trying to cancel Direct Debits, subscriptions and commitments from my bank account. Everything from a very expensive gym membership to my Netflix subscription had been completely cut. Anything to save a bit of money.

It still left me with dangerously little to last me the rest of the month. If Uncle Prentis wanted me to stay ‘til Christmas, then he was going to have to cope with getting petrol station flowers as a gift.

I’d cut back everywhere I could now, so it was time to actually get my arse into gear so that I could be out of Hiraeth once Christmas was over.

Once I had confirmed valuations and yields, my accountants would take over finding buyers for me.

With the high street now being filled and events like BloodCon in town it wouldn’t be difficult to find a buyer.

I’d tried to have a proper shower in the morning to make myself presentable but as ever the water was freezing.

I had a feeling that Macsen was using the shower for just long enough to use up all the water and piss me off even more, though I couldn’t prove it.

And who was I to stop a man showering in his own house?

The other unfortunate side effect of freezing showers was that they killed off any little opportunity for me to have a wank.

I’d been in Hiraeth for a week now and my sexual frustration was reaching new heights, especially being around Macsen.

I finished my coffee and swilled the mug in the sink.

It was almost 9am and I had to meet Alun and Alaw at the cafe in an hour.

It would take at least 45 minutes from the garage to town and apparently Prentis was too busy doing hot yoga at a local community centre to pick me up.

Rather than marinate on thoughts of my septuagenarian uncle contorting himself into many sweaty poses I got going.

It was cold outside, and I pulled at the lapels of my jacket like it would do anything.

In my rush to get away from Brian I’d completely declined to grab myself a coat, and this December seemed determined to punish me for that.

I looked into the garage. Macsen was working in his overalls, arms stretched above his head as he worked on the car that was propped up above him.

“I’m off down to town, do you need anything?” I asked. He didn’t even look at me as he shook his head no. “Alright then. See you later.”

“Later,” he said. It seemed he was in another one of his less chatty moods, so I just left him to it.

The walk was enjoyable on the way into the village, if a bit cold. It had been a cold enough December so far that the mud underfoot was hard and crunchy so I didn’t get any mud on my expensive leather brogues.

I felt like a fraud, walking in my Armani suit, leather shoes and designer laptop bag.

The bag cost more than I had in my bank account and the laptop inside doubly so.

I had so much, but so little I could do anything with.

I had to use my business sense to build myself back up from nothing.

And luckily, these clothes added to the illusion.

I must have power-walked into the village because I reached the cafe twenty minutes before our meeting. It was quiet inside and James gave me a smile. He was behind the counter rolling out pastry and wearing a white knitted cardigan and jeans. “Hey, good looking,” he said. “How’s things?”

“Good, thanks.” I approached the counter. “I’ll have an Americano please…ooh, and one of those little tarts.” I pointed at an unlabelled but fruity looking thing.

“You can have that to test,” said James. “Glyn who runs the bakery was supplying me but he’s tearing out his hair with the amount of tourists in the town right now so I’ve made my own.”

I took a bite out of the tart on the counter. “Beautiful,” I said. James’ eyes lit up.

As he made the coffee, I leaned on the counter and looked around. “What brought you to the town then? You’re not a local.”

“I think you’ll find there are a few of us about now,” said James. “I was the first though, and I hold that over Danny and Nathan’s heads.”

“Danny and Nathan?”

“Sorry, Daniel Ellison, international star. And Nathan, who owns the little nerdy memorabilia shop. He moved in last month.”

“Oh, cool. And you didn’t say why…?”

Before James could answer a door opened at the rear of the cafe.

Llywelyn, who had been in the year below me in school, emerged.

He looked hardly different to the last time I’d seen him — he was a heavy-set man with dark, thick hair and a beard.

He wore a tartan style shirt and jeans, both of which were covered in paint splatters.

He held a toolbox in one hand. So he was still here, doing the same thing.

Had people in the village really not moved forward with their lives?

“Shelves fixed,” he said gruffly.

James looked at him and grinned. “However will I repay you?”

I saw Llywelyn blush under all the beard. “You’re really going to role-play when you have a customer in?”

“Shut up,” said James. He pulled Llywelyn’s head down for a kiss, and I struggled to pick my jaw up from the floor. James continued. “Anyway, go home and get changed. I’m taking you out later, remember?”

“Yessir.” Llywelyn tipped his head to me before he left the shop. So he didn’t want to say hello? That was fine.

“I came here for love,” said James as he turned to me with coffee in hand. “Well, it’s not why I came here. But it’s why I stayed.”

“So, you and Llywelyn…” I started. I wasn’t sure whether I was making a statement or a question.

“Yes, me and Llywelyn. I don’t know how we work, but we do.

” James passed me the coffee and waved away my card as I held it up to pay.

“Don’t tell Llyw I’m not charging you though.

I had a nightmare stopping him giving away his services for free.

And then this town turns you into something else.

Can you imagine I used to work in investment banking?

” He pointed at his cable-knit jumper. “This would’ve been a suit once upon a time, and I waddled into meetings every day thinking I was doing the right thing, earning hundreds of thousands and working seventy-hour weeks for it.

Thank God I got out. I’ve found my people here. ”

I shuddered. I couldn’t imagine life outside of the bubble I was in. Brian might have put a spanner in the works but I was determined to get back home to London. To prove him wrong.

I thanked James for my coffee and took it and the tart to a table to work. I snuck a few glances over at him as he worked and greeted a steady trickle of customers. He looked happy, and I couldn’t imagine the slight and short man ever working in the cut-throat world of London finance.

The door tinkled as I was poring over some spreadsheets. I looked up and waved to Alun and Alaw as they walked in. They each got a hot drink from James at the counter and sat down at the table with me. Alun looked…wary, of me. Alaw smiled genuinely though and held out a hand for me to shake.

“Nice to meet you again, Hywel.”

“And you.” I remembered Alaw. She was a few years below me in school but she’d shown all the signs of a promising career and last I’d heard she had been working high up somewhere in Swansea, the second biggest city in Wales. So why had she come back?

“So,” Alaw started. “Why did you want to meet?”

I hesitated before continuing. In order to discuss with them I’d need a lot of trust. Could I trust them with the truth? There seemed to be no other way forward.

“I own a significant amount of property in the area. Property I’d now like to…offload. My uncle said you’d be the people best placed to help me convince the businesses and council that this might be a good idea.”

Alaw sighed, and Alun coughed quietly into his hand. “OK,” said Alaw. “Let’s unpack that.”

Alun spoke up then for the first time. “We’d been trying to get into contact with your secretary for weeks without response. We were hoping when you came to town it’d be to discuss how you could help regenerate the place, not hand it over to more faceless London landlords.”

Alaw put a hand over Alun’s which immediately silenced him, and he blushed. Was everyone in this town shacking up now?

“With my degree and knowledge of marketing we started a consultancy,” said Alaw. “We’ve been helping towns across mid and West Wales to reach their full potential. It’s disappointing to say the least that you’re planning on selling now.”

“…sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. In any normal situation I would negotiate, work out a way around this. In any normal situation I would have never sold my investment in these properties anyway. Hadn’t I bought them to keep them out of the hands of faceless corporations?

Alaw scribbled something down on her notepad and looked up at me. “What I’m proposing is right of first refusal. Every person who rents property from you is entitled to buy their property from you before you put out the listing elsewhere.”

“That…sounds reasonable,” I said.

“I’d also appreciate you offering the properties at a discount directly proportional to the amount of time they’ve rented from you. I’m not asking the world, but a discount of a few thousand pounds could make a lot of difference to people’s ability to buy. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” I said. I had to swallow past the lump in my throat as I did though. It would mean having to accept less money overall and I wasn’t sure how much I could cope with that.