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everything casual. And don’t get me wrong, I’m having a good time. A really fantastic one. But I would like to know. Was it something I did? Had you always wanted to wander? Did I put too much pressure on you?”
    “Shit, Stacey. It didn’t have anything to do with you at all.” His appetite for the upcoming meal vanished.
    “I have a hard time believing you. Don’t get me wrong. I meant when I said we both had better careers because you took off. But if it was location and not me you wanted to be rid of, I would have dated you from afar or come with you. I think you know I’m right, too.” Her eyes pleaded for answers. After fifteen years of wondering, she must really want to know truth from him.
    He took a large gulp of wine. “I left to free myself from the torture I lived with on a daily basis. I didn’t take you with me because I was in no state back then to handle anything more than surviving from one day to the next. I had nothing to give you. It seemed kinder to be cruel than to be endlessly disappointing you. Staying with you would have only dragged you into my little emotional shitstorm, there.”
    Stacey’s narrowed gaze told him she had finally caught on. His heart raced as he waited for her to say something. How did he feel about her knowing what no one knew? A little sick about it—and terribly relieved at the same time.
    “What was torturing you?”
    The waiter picked that moment to serve the appetizers. He looked down at his shrimp like it was a foreign object. Had he ever eaten before? If someone asked him what to do with food, Aidan didn’t know if he could answer. His mind had gone completely askew.
    “My father.” He spoke softly, unable to stop gritting his teeth. “Right around the time I turned twelve, he started teaching me how to be a man. He’d get shit-faced drunk and beat the hell out of me. Several times a week, at least. I realized as I lay on the floor, the last time it happened, I was twenty years old and if I didn’t get out of New Orleans, it was never going to stop. Ever. I’d be forty years old and he’d still be knocking me to the ground.”
    “How could I have not known?” Her voice sounded hoarse.
    “It was always places people couldn’t see. Never my face. That would be too obvious. It would garner attention. They couldn’t let people know. My stomach. My back. They could all be explained as sports injuries.” And often had been.
    She gasped, covering her mouth. When she finally dropped her hand, it thumped on the table, making the silverware clink and shake. “The football-practice injuries. And then later on you were always falling down or bumping into things. What is wrong with me? Why was I so blind?”
    To his horror, a tear slid down her cheek. “No.” He reached out and squeezed her fingers. “Don’t cry. You were young. Thank God you never suspected. I would have hated it if you had found out back then. When I was with you, it was like none of it went on. I got to be me; I got to be happy because I was with you.”
    “I wish your father wasn’t dead. I’d like to kill him.” She picked up the butter spreader. “With this.”
    He laughed. “Eat your salad. They’re going to think something weird is going on if neither of us consumes any food here tonight.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    Aidan sighed. “Neither am I. But we’re going to eat.”
    “What about your mother?” she asked, before putting a small tasting of her lettuce into her mouth.
    “Complicated. She actually spurred my taking off. Dad had knocked me over. I’d fallen into the bar. Cut myself. I stood up, and there she was with a group of her friends. They were all so shocked. None of them had seen Dad do what he did. Mom knew, of course. She announced to the group I’d developed a drinking problem.”
    He shrugged. It had always seemed ridiculous. Better to have a drunken son than an abusive husband? Ultimately, it had all come down to who mattered more to their group.