Eighteen Years
by Edward Kyle Stokes
Chapter 3
I Can't Give You My Number.
The harsh, neon glare of the Chester nightlife had long faded, replaced by the soft, pale grey of a Sunday morning creeping through the single window. The light spilled across the tiny bedroom, illuminating the cluttered desk, the Yaoi poster, and the narrow bed where the two boys lay tangled together.
Harry woke first, his eyes blinking against the dawn. The heavy, protective weight of Aled's head was resting against his shoulder, a mass of wild, unkempt dark curls pressing into his neck. Aled was still fast asleep, his breathing deep and even, his face completely smooth and devoid of the intense anxiety that had gripped him the night before. Harry didn't move. He just lay there for a long time, watching the way the morning light caught the sharp angle of Aled's jaw, feeling a profound, quiet shift inside his own chest.
When Aled finally stirred, his bright eyes fluttering open, he didn't panic. He looked up at Harry, a soft, sleepy smile gracing his lips, and murmured a quiet Welsh greeting.
Harry didn't have much in the way of luxuries in his cramped student room—no TV, no soft chairs, just textbooks and laundry—but he did have one prized possession: a small, pod coffee machine perched on the corner of his desk.
"Don't move," Harry whispered, kissing the top of Aled's head before sliding out of the warm duvet.
Within minutes, the sharp, rich aroma of espresso filled the small room, cutting through the heavy scent of their midnight intimacy. Harry handed a steaming mug to Aled, who wrapped his hands around it, sitting up against the wall while Harry perched on the edge of the mattress beside him.
But as the warmth of the coffee filled them, the reality of the outside world began to set in. The bubble they had created last night was beginning to thin.
"I have to get back," Aled said softly, staring down into the black liquid. The melodic lilt of his voice carried a sudden, heavy note of resignation. "My dad... he expects me back by mid-morning. There's always chores. Sunday or not."
Harry frowned slightly, reaching out to rest a hand on Aled's bare knee. "Right. Yeah, of course. But you'll come back next weekend, right? We can go to the Flamingo Rose again, or just hang out here. Without the club."
Aled swallowed hard, shaking his head. "I can't. I can only come back to Chester in two weeks time. Maybe longer. We're in the middle of preparing the sheep for market, and my brothers and I are on a strict rotation. I won't get another Saturday night off for a fortnight."
Harry's heart sank, the almost three-year age gap and the vast distance between their worlds suddenly feeling very real. He was used to the fast-paced London life where you could see someone an hour after texting them. Two weeks felt like an eternity.
"Okay," Harry said, trying to keep his voice upbeat. He reached over to his desk, grabbing his smartphone. "Well, that's fine. Give me your number. We can text, FaceTime, whatever you want. It'll make the two weeks go faster."
Aled froze. He looked at the phone in Harry's hand, and then down at his own lap. "No," he said quietly. "I can't give you my number."
Harry blinked, taken aback. The rejection stung, and his confident posture stiffened. "Why not? Aled, after last night, I thought..."
"Listen to me, Harry," Aled interrupted, his voice tight as he looked up, his bright eyes filled with a sudden, desperate earnestness. "You don't understand how it is. If I start getting calls or texts at odd hours, my phone buzzing on the kitchen table... my older brothers will see it. They'll start to ask questions."
Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Aled kept going, the words pouring out of him.
"They'd want to know who the girl was," Aled explained, his hands gripping his coffee mug so tightly his knuckles turned white. "They'd ask for her name, her family, what her dad does, are they farmers? It's a close-knit community in the valleys, Harry. Everyone knows everyone. If you're seeing someone, the whole village knows by Tuesday."
Aled set the mug down on the bedside table and looked directly into Harry's eyes. The contrast between them had never been more stark—the protected, open city boy and the hidden, rural lad.
"And listen, Harry," Aled said, his voice dropping to a heartbreaking, tragic whisper. "There is no girl. There's just us." He looked around the tiny room, his shoulders slumping. "And... I can't explain that to them. I can't ever explain that."
The raw grief in Aled's voice silenced Harry completely. The reality of his life—the isolation, the secrecy, the heavy burden of a traditional Welsh farming family—hit Harry like a physical blow. He reached out, sliding his large hand over Aled's, offering the only comfort he could as the morning light fully exposed the beautiful, complicated world they had just stepped into.
"I don't know how I'll survive two weeks," Harry said, his voice dropping all its bravado, entirely serious. "But somehow, I will." He looked up at Aled, a sudden thought hitting him. "Let me take a picture of you? At least then I've got something to look at."
Aled stood up from the bed, stepping into the narrow space between the mattress and the desk. "Like this?" he asked, stretching his arms out slightly.
Harry burst out laughing because they were both still completely, stark naked. The absurdity of it lightened the heavy morning mood instantly, the sound echoing off the small walls.
"Like that is just fine," Harry grinned, reaching over to the desk to grab his phone.
Now that the ice was broken, Aled's shy farm-boy demeanour shifted into something surprisingly bold. Fed by the confidence Harry had given him all through the night, he changed his posture, shifting his weight to one hip in a slightly more provocative stance.
He looked at Harry through his dark fringe. "You want a full frontal nude, or..." Aled turned his back to Harry, deliberately arching his spine and looking back over his slim shoulder, "...or do you want an arse pic?" He let out a bright, wicked laugh. "No, you don't need to answer. I know already you prefer my arse."
"Shut up!" Harry joked back, his eyes devouring the view nonetheless. He tossed the phone onto the desk, completely forgetting about the photo. He moved in close, stepping into Aled's space and wrapping his large hands gently around the boy's jaw, turning Aled's face so they were eye-to-eye. "I like all of you."
He leaned down and kissed him, a deep, warm, reassuring press of his lips that sent a familiar shiver straight down Aled's spine.
As they pulled away, Harry flashed a devastating, unrepentant grin. "But yeah... I really, really like your arse."
Aled chuckled, but his gaze didn't drop to the floor in embarrassment this time. The shame was gone. Instead, his eyes tracked down the front of Harry's thick, athletic torso, locking directly onto the prominent, thick stretch of Harry's morning wood, which was already pointing proudly toward the ceiling.
"So, do you have to go right away?" Harry asked, his voice thick with a sudden reluctance to let the morning slip away. "What's the time?"
Aled glanced over at his phone resting on the desk. "It's just after nine." He turned back to Harry, his eyes softening as he saw the disappointment on the older boy's face. "I have a couple of hours yet."
Harry's face instantly lit up. "Right, let's take a shower and have breakfast together. My treat."
Aled smiled, the prospect of extending their bubble for just a little longer warming him from the inside out. Harry immediately scrambled around the small room, sorting out clean towels and a fresh pair of boxers. He explained that the communal showers were down at the end of the corridor, and handed Aled one of his own clean t-shirts to wear afterward. When Aled pulled it over his head, it was comically oversized—the shoulder seams hanging halfway down his biceps and the hem nearly reaching his mid-thigh, highlighting just how slim and compact Aled was compared to Harry's rugby-player build.
After a quick, stolen kiss in the steam of the shared bathroom, they dressed and headed out into the crisp, quiet Sunday morning.
They walked down Parkgate Road and found a small, independent cafe tucked away near the university. The air inside smelled of sizzling bacon, fresh pastries, and ground coffee beans. It was cozy and warm, a perfect haven from the chilly morning air. They took a table in the corner, tucked away from the few other early-morning patrons. Harry ordered a massive full English breakfast, while Aled opted for something simpler, his eyes fixed on Harry as they waited for their food.
Over the clink of cutlery and the gentle hum of the cafe, the conversation turned back to the future.
"I finish uni in two months," Harry explained, leaning forward on his elbows. "And I've got a year off lined up before I start my postgraduate stuff. A gap year."
"A gap year?" Aled repeated, the concept entirely foreign to his own life, where time off didn't exist unless you were too sick to walk. "What are you going to do?"
"Well, I was planning to travel," Harry said, his eyes locking onto Aled's with a sudden, intense seriousness. "Just buy a ticket and see where the wind blew me. No specific itinerary. But now... all that has changed."
Aled blinked. "Changed? Why?"
"Because of you," Harry said simply, reaching across the wooden table to lightly touch Aled's hand. "We could go together. I mean, maybe not for a whole year—I don't have a big enough budget for that—but we could easily do six months for the two of us. We could go to Europe, or Southeast Asia. Just the two of us. What do you think?"
Instead of the excitement Harry expected, a deep, heavy sadness washed over Aled's face. He looked down at Harry's hand, the reality of the chasm between their lives crashing down on him with brutal force.
The differences between them had never been more obvious. Harry belonged to a world of endless choices, disposable income, and freedom. He could simply decide to leave the country for months on end because his life was an open book waiting to be written.
But Aled's life was already written in the soil of the North Wales valleys.
"Harry..." Aled said softly, his voice trembling a little. "I can't just leave."
"Why not?" Harry pressed, desperate. "It's just six months. Your brothers can cover for you, surely?"
"It's not just about the rotation," Aled said, looking up with eyes that felt far older than eighteen. "It's the farm. It's my family. If I leave for six months, what happens when I come back? The questions don't just disappear. If I tell them I'm going traveling with a lad from London... they'll know. And even if I lied, how could I leave my dad with all the work? The sheep don't stop needing looking after because I want to see the world."
Aled squeezed Harry's hand, his heart breaking as he looked at the beautiful, impossible dream Harry was offering him. "You have a year off, Harry. But I'm bound to that land. I don't know how I could ever leave the farm. I just don't."
Harry felt the raw, heavy impact of what Aled was saying. The sheer weight of Aled's reality—the centuries-old tradition, the unyielding loyalty to family, the invisible tie of the land—hit him like a wave of freezing water. He looked at the younger boy's sad, beautiful face and realised that pushing any further right now would only shatter the fragile happiness they had built. He didn't want to completely dampen the mood, so he let out a soft breath, squeezed Aled's hand back, and made no reply.
They finished their breakfast in a quieter, more tender atmosphere, the immediate urgency of the future set aside for the comfort of the present.
Afterward, with an hour still left before Aled had to head back over the border, they took a slow walk down toward the River Dee. The morning air was crisp, wrinkling the surface of the water as a few early-morning rowers glided past. They walked along the paved promenade, their shoulders brushing with every few steps. Away from the university and the club, they were just two young men enjoying a Sunday stroll, though the space between their hands felt charged with everything they couldn't say aloud.
They found a quiet spot beneath the overhanging branches of a weeping willow, shielded from the main path.
Harry turned to Aled, pulling him in by the waist. The contrast of Aled wearing Harry's comically oversized t-shirt under his rugged leather jacket was intensely endearing. They leaned into each other, and Harry kissed him—a long, deep, bruising kiss that tasted of coffee, spring air, and a fierce, aching longing. It was a promise wrapped in a goodbye.
"Two weeks," Harry murmured against Aled's lips, his voice thick. "Saturday night. Same spot by the bar. I'll be waiting."
Aled nodded, his bright eyes fierce with determination. "Two weeks. I'll be there."
Aled had Harry's number saved into his phone, tucked away under a fake name to protect his secret back home, a lifeline connecting him to this alternate universe. Harry stepped back, looking at Aled one last time. A sad, heartbroken smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he gestured to the oversized fabric drowning the younger boy's frame.
"And Aled?" Harry said, his voice cracking just a little despite his attempt at a joke. "I want that t-shirt back."
Aled let out a soft, genuine laugh, the melodic lilt of it echoing over the water. "You'll have to come and get it, then."
With one final, lingering look, Aled turned and walked back toward his motorbike, leaving Harry by the riverbank, already counting down the seconds of the next fourteen days.
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