I stared at the back of his neck, imagining heat rays. He turned, arranging his wallet.

“Hey, Romeo,” I said, adding a bit of gravel.

He paused and looked me over. Quizzical, arrogant, not the least bit intimidated.

“We met?” he said.

Every fiber of my being recoiled at the scent of his aftershave, his Eastern drawl. I also detest polo shirts for irrational reasons. Words formed in my mouth, and died there. Isaiah Coleridge of yesteryear followed this guy into the john, or outside, and pulped his smirking face. What did older, wiser, straight-arrow family-man Coleridge do when confronted by a banal little prick? He stepped aside like a grizzly inexplicably ceding the trail to a cur.

“Have a day.” The dude thrust his hips forward as he sidled past my bemused self. Walking back to a woman and two kids at a table, his gait slackened and he rounded his shoulders. From alpha wolf to neutered beagle in less than five seconds. What other secrets did he keep from his loving wife and children?

I held Meg’s coat and casually asked if she’d seen him at the library. Possibly I entertained the fantasy of tracking him down and kicking his ass at a more opportune moment.

“The guy in the polo shirt? Yeah, that’s Dave something-or-other. He and his wife come into the library and check out videos for their kids. Agreeable family. Well, she’s cool and he’s kind of a dweeb, I suppose. Why?”

“He looks familiar. No worries.” I was worried. Worried I’d jumped over civilized restraint and into abject domestication.

Apparently, Meg’s psychic antenna was receiving a signal and she gave me side-eye calibrated to dispel any notion I was getting one over on her. She patted my cheek and a don couldn’t have implied greater menace. Her skin transformed in the holiday lights. Red and green and purple. The color spectrum of a holiday mood ring.

■■■

We were lying in bed. Sleepy, but not ready for sleep. Enjoying the afterglow. Talk segued to my lingering injuries and persistent nightmares. Also reminiscent of the Bronze Age traditions, she, as women tend to do, took my complaints deadly seriously and magnified the stakes tenfold. She’d long sensed trouble, and now her every sneaking hunch was validated. Woman’s intuition, or she’d missed her calling as a sleuth. Early on in our courtship I’d made the mistake of congratulating myself on slipping something past her, only to realize, to my chagrin, she excelled at holding her fire until I was vulnerable and exposed.

“You’ve lived a life of consequence-free violence.” She’d lit several candles and the room swam with ceremonial light. Our shadows were the shadows of giants.

I rotated my stiff shoulder and it crackled.

“Wouldn’t say it’s been a picnic, exactly. Are you even looking at my face?”

“Consequence-free, honey. That’s changing. Lionel said it. The doctors have said it. Your body is saying it. You won’t be able to raise that arm overhead ten, twelve years from now. Won’t be able to run on those knees. Your back is probably shot. That misspent youth is a bill due.”