Page 16 of Full Service

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 forfree. 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 bestplaced 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.

“Great. If you can assess the properties for a valuation, we can discreetly put out feelers in terms of sales then. As long as we’re satisfied you’ve actually attempted to sell the properties locally we’re happy to represent you to the parish council if any properties have to be sold elsewhere.”

“Thanks, Alaw. I really appreciate it.”

It wasn’t Alaw who replied but Alun. “Some of us really care for the town we grew up in.”

???

I spent most of my day in the cafe, ordering coffee after coffee and feeling guiltier every time James wouldn’t let me pay. Alaw and Alun’s words were heavy on my mind as I typed out templates which I could fill out later with information about the viability of each business and their value as a saleable asset. It was 6pm and dark out when James finally kicked me out.

The walk home was especially cold and again I regretted not bringing a coat. I wanted to call Prentis to ask him to drop me off at the garage but he still believed I was commuting in from Aberystwyth when I needed to. It would be embarrassing if people knew I was selling because I was so desperate. And it would make it easier to try to force me to sell. Brian had always told me to keep my cards close to my chest. Even when fucking me — and fucking me over financially — he had certainly done that.

---