Edwin and Ellen finalise their divorce in the last week of August. The weather is rather gloomy for the time of the year and Edwin's mood is reflecting the weather. The next part of his journey has already started, but this is the end of another one. Ellen has been his travelling companion for decades, literally and figuratively, and now he's embarking on a ship to unknown shores and he's not sure yet who else will be on board and which familiar faces are leaving on different ships to other or the same shores and who will change their ship and destination in any of the ports they will pass.

Edwin wistfully remembers the places they have passed, the ports they have seen, their plans and memories that have both been changed by his discovery, as earth-shattering as the discovery of America. Not only has their future changed, but they will never be able to look back and see the past in the familiar light of knowing who they were, are, and will be.

As they're standing outside the courthouse, Edwin asks: "Do you want to go for a drink?" Now that they're not legally bound, they have space to grow closer again. That's what Edwin hopes, at least. They have talked, these past months, but they have also avoided each other, circling around anything meaningful, anything that would touch on emotional bruises.

Ellen takes a second. She has more grey streaks in her hair than half a year ago. It strikes Edwin how beautiful she is, but also how clearly he is not attracted to her. His appreciation is born from love, the familiarity of her wrinkles, a marriage that let him see everything she is.

"Sure," she answers. A warmth blossoms in Edwin that he has missed, in these months they saw each other but were never close. It's the first time since he came out to her that they seem friends again, and not just exes.

They enter the nearest coffee bar and seek out a secluded table.

"They have fair-trade coffee," Edwin says.

"Really?" Ellen takes out her reading glasses and leans over as Edwin shows her the menu.

"Do I order one for you?"

"Yes, please." She smiles at him. "And a piece of that chocolate cake!"

Edwin chuckles. "Of course." He gets up to order, but Ellen grabs his arm to straighten his sleeve. Even when she lets go, Edwin keeps looking at her for a second longer and he feels the phantom of her grip on his wrist.

He waits at the bar for their order but has to walk to their table twice because he can't hold the coffee, the tea and the piece of cake at once. When he sits down, Ellen asks, already stirring her coffee: "So, are we here for chitchat or do you have another announcement that will change my life?" Her smile softens the impact of her words.

Edwin shakes his head. "No announcements, but no chitchat either."

"So no pregnancies?"

Edwin chuckles and leans back while he steeps his tea sachet. "Not that I know. Though Sandra told me about her miscarriage."

"She did? When did she tell you?"

"End of July. She said you already knew."

"Yeah, she told me when it happened. You aren't ... angry you didn't know earlier, right?"

"That'd be very selfish of me. It's her decision, and she didn't trust me. But I understand it was difficult for her and she had trouble with my coming-out."

"Is she still acting like that? I told her she should talk to you, but you know her." Ellen sighs.

"We're fine. We've talked in July. And it was a change for her too, not just for us."

"But her life didn't change that much that she should avoid you. Lots of parents divorce. She's an adult! She knew you're not the villain. She hurt you."

"She's emotional." Edwin pauses. "You are too. You hurt me, too."

"But it's not about her and it is about me! Nothing you have said has meant or implied that you ever loved her less, but you did - do - love me less. It's our relationship that was broken, not hers with you."

"Ellen ..." Edwin wants to reach out, but Ellen is moving her hands to emphasise her words.

"No, do not come with that! You don't love me like I love you and that's okay and I can't change that, but it hurts. It hurts that I can't change that." She said something similar when he came out. Edwin understands, and he hates that he does. Save for his daughters, there's no one in this world he loves more than Ellen.

"But it also hurts me that I can't change that. I've wished I could change that, that I could love you as you deserve. You are the woman of my life."

"Yeah, and that's served me very well," Ellen mutters. She stirs her coffee a little too aggressively and it splashes over the rim of her cup.

"Look out!" Edwin's hand hovers. "You're gonna burn yourself."

"I fuckin' know that," she spits out. She freezes and exhales slowly. "Sorry, go on. Give me a minute." Edwin opens his mouth but stops before he can utter a word. In all their years together, he has learned that if Ellen asks for a minute, he has to give her a minute. If he didn't, their fight would never be productive. They're also in a coffee bar. Not the place to make a scene with increasingly loud voices, even if nobody is looking their way yet.

Ellen starts eating her cake. "This is really good. Do you want a taste?"

"Sure." Ellen holds out her fork. Edwin remembers dates like this, when they were 19 and only just together, when they were 30 and had an adventurous toddler at home, or even just five years ago. It calms him down but also pours acid on the fault line in his heart that this is not a date and this is not a couple's fight. "Tastes good."

"No regrets yet that you're missing out on this? Because I'm keeping this all to myself." Her eyes twinkle.

Edwin shakes his head with an indulgent smile. "Gotta watch my weight. And cholesterol."

"It hasn't worsened, has it?"

"No, doctor says I just gotta keep doing what I'm doing."

"I'm glad. I do love you and want the best for you." She covers his hand.

"I know. I want the best for you too." He doesn't say he loves her too. It is true, but it is not the love she wants from him, not the love she has for him.

"I know. That's why we have just divorced. I want you to be able to go out and have a fulfilling relationship."

"Ellen ... I don't regret anything about our relationship. You did fulfil all my needs. Just not like that. If you didn't, I wouldn't have thought for so long I was attracted to you."

Ellen lets out a harsh breath that inches closer to a sob. "Real consolation, Ed, that we wasted half our lives because I fulfilled your needs."

Edwin is not sure what to answer in that statement. "You think we wasted half our lives?"

"You don't? It was not wasted for me while it lasted because I'm a straight woman, but you were never even attracted to me."

"But you are my friend. You made me happy and I love our children. I didn't even know I wasn't attracted to you like that. I didn't miss anything. It's only now that I know the difference, that I'm wanting something else."

"You really didn't know? You've said that, but I find it hard to believe."

"You think I'm lying? That I was lying when I came out to you, when I came out to the girls?"

Ellen backtracks. "I don't know. Trying not to hurt my feelings?"

A prickly ball rises in Edwin's throat. "Have I ever not been honest just to spare your feelings?"

"I don't know!" Ellen throws her hands in the air. "Sometimes I think I don't know anything about you anymore. There's never been something like this, so maybe this is the exception."

"I am not a different man! You know me."

"Well, it doesn't feel like it. If I knew you, how come I never knew something so vital? Dammit, Ed, I want to be understanding, but I'm hurting and that's not your fault, but it still hurts. You know?"

"And I understand that you're hurting, but - never mind." You're hurting me.

"No, what? Come on, don't close up. I'd think you've learned that doesn't work with me somewhere during those years we were married. We talk about our feelings in this house."

Edwin huffs. "You're lashing out because you're hurt."

"See, not that hard." Her smile evens out again. "I'm sorry. We probably should have had this conversation earlier, but I avoided it because I knew it was gonna be painful. I guess I'm allowed to take the easy way out once in a while, but now I've just a bunch of bottled up feelings about something that's painful for both of us."

Edwin wiggles his shoulders. "It's fine. I could have started it too, but everything has just been so strange. Especially before I moved out."

"You don't say. I can't remember if we exchanged more than ten words during those weeks."

"Half of those were about the move for sure."

Ellen laughs. It's an open sound that reminds Edwin of summer nights in other countries, chatting and joking under a starry sky. "We should talk more. It'd be a pity if we let all that blackmail material go to waste and only ever asked to pass the salad."

Edwin imagines their next Saturday dinner, no tension, no keeping to small talk. He craves that. He replies: "I look forward to it."

***

The basketball season only starts at the end of September, but that doesn't keep Edwin from meeting up with Patrick and the others several times before then. They can be a rowdy group - not unlike the boys who used to be his friends - but he feels right at home and never hesitates to speak up. They invite him to a barbecue, a watch party for a football match, a trip to the cinema. It's strange to hang out as an individual and not as part of a couple. Edwin realises he should have done that much earlier. He is regaining a piece of himself that he lost somewhere in all the years that he and Ellen were together and it is maybe the best consequence of the whole divorce.

Nevertheless, the first basketball training of the season might be the highlight of his recent social life. It has been too long since he played, too long that he had to exercise on his own. As promised, Willem arranged his membership and he introduces Edwin to the other guys on the team. Arthur turns out to be a brown man in his early thirties with full sleeves tattooed on both his arms. Whenever he speaks up, he glances at Willem, who entertains him with a friendly distance.

Patrick clasps Edwin's shoulder. "I'm so happy you're here! Now the real fun can begin."

"Funny," Robert quips, "I was about to say the same."

"Guess we have great taste in friends," Patrick replies.

They're not the only ones bantering. The atmosphere in the locker room is amicable, exactly what Edwin remembers from his other team, before his coming-out, and that transfers to the field. He might be the new guy, but he fits in as if he's been playing with them for years. They pass to him, they laugh and shout at him, and create a sense of team with astonishing ease.

After the training, Edwin is changing when Patrick says: "You're coming with us, right?"

"We're going somewhere?"

The guy next to him, whose name might or might not be Leo, laughs and explains: "We're going for a drink. It's tradition."

"The whole team is coming," Patrick says.

"I can't!" someone says. Edwin doesn't remember his name. "I've got an early shift."

"And you want to get laid!" another person shouts. A few people whistle.

"I wish," the guy replies. "No, I'm off to bed. Don't land in a ditch!" The door of the locker room swings shut behind him.

"Fuck you!" someone yells.

"Right back at you!" comes the muffled reply.

"Anyway, you coming?" Robert asks.

Edwin nods. "Sure."

The group heads out to a bar that is apparently part of the tradition because they walk right past another one. Inside, they spread out over several tables, already talking and laughing in slightly smaller groups. Edwin sticks close to Patrick and Robert and he ends up at a table with both of them, Willem, Arthur, and Leo.

Leo is rather young, maybe in his mid-twenties, and he settles between Willem and Arthur. Willem doesn't notice, but Arthur murmurs something to Leo that Edwin can't hear over the music and noise. Leo shakes his head and Arthur grumbles but resigns.

When they all have a beer in front of them, Willem asks: "So, was the training what you expected? Wanted?"

"I'm happy to be playing again. You're a nice bunch. Certainly tops covert glances and distance."

Willem smirks. "Of course we do. I speak from experience when I say that half the team are good tops. Still have to test the other half."

Patrick scoffs and throws a crisp at him. "Keep it in your pants! We're in polite company."

"Fuck, Patrick." Willem laughs and eats the crisp. "You sure aren't." He turns to Edwin: "Are you polite company? Because I'm not sure yet."

Edwin chuckles. "I do have two daughters, so probably more polite than you."

"You're a family guy, that's right. Ever been with a guy?"

"Not yet." Edwin is almost embarrassed. Here he is, between all these experienced guys, and he's the equivalent of a virgin. But after so many years with one woman, he's not sure he can do casual sex. He's never even done that.

"Fuck, you're really the strong and silent friend. Manly man. What's your type?"

All eyes are on Edwin now. He opens his mouth without a sound. Patrick, who sits on his left, flexes his arms. "I know I am. We did meet on Grindr."

The table laughs and Edwin joins in. "Nah, I'm not into creaking backs."

Willem guffaws and claps his back. "Fuck, man, you've got guts."

Patrick downs his glass. "I love how you sit there looking silent and innocent and then you attack me like that."

"You know what they say: the silent ones are the wildest in bed," Arthur quips. "I hooked up with this guy once who barely said a word but was a screamer in the sheets."

"Louder than you?" Leo snickers.

"I can hardly believe that," Robert agrees. "Or that there were sheets involved."

Edwin is relieved to be out of the spotlight, but then Robert turns to him again. "So, muscles and leather? That your thing?"

"Sure," Edwin says, even though he's not sure. Patrick looks good, but to call him his type? He remembers a dark gaze from the gay bar. Ellen has dark eyes too.

"Shit," Willem exclaims, "muscles and leather are everyone's type! If you're attracted to men, why would you not be attracted to the manliest of manly things?" The other men hum and nod.

"No twinks for you?" Leo asks.

"Nah, not for me. They can do whatever the fuck they want, but I still find it fucking weird whenever I see a guy wear make-up."

Leo shrugs. "Some people like that. I don't judge."

"Course," Willem says. "If some men find that hot, good for them."

Robert stands up. "Another round?"

"You're a saint!" Patrick shouts.

"You know me," Robert winks, "saint in the streets, devil in the sheets."

***

Author's Note: More recommendations! Be sure to check them out. This chapter, we got salemkeating and Ante!

We also have wera_nyooms and Broken Bonds!