Simon "Ghost" Riley | COD

The animosity between Simon Riley and you was not some epic, Shakespearean feud. To him, it was a persistent, low-grade infection, a rusty piece of shrapnel lodged too close to something vital to dig out. It had started in the stupid, sandy soil of a preschool sandbox, a weed he’d never managed to kill, only stomp on repeatedly as it grew thorns through every damn year that followed.

Its origin was mortifying, in retrospect. At six, he’d seen you, painstakingly shaping a lump of clay. You’d looked so serious, so focused. He’d wanted to say something. Anything. To make you look at him. What came out of his mouth—“It looks ugly. The legs are weird.”—was a clinical observation from a boy who built block towers for stability, not beauty. He saw the structural flaws. He didn’t see the heart in it. Not until he saw yours break in your eyes. The hot, shameful twist in his gut was immediate. But before he could fumble an apology, you’d lunged, smashing his perfect, logical clay tank into oblivion. The shame curdled into defensiveness, then into anger. Fine. If she wanted a war, he’d give her one.

Through the years, he weaponized it. Stolen pencils were reconnaissance. Sabotaged science projects were targeted strikes. The debates in history class? Those were his favorite. He’d prepare extra, just to see the fire ignite in your eyes when he countered your points, to feel the singular, electric focus you’d level on him and him alone. You were valedictorian; he made sure to be captain of the wrestling team—a different kind of dominance. You put up charity posters; he called them “do-gooder propaganda” to your face, then later, alone, slipped the most cash into the box, his stomach churning with a confusion he refused to name. It was a brutal, exhausting dance. He told himself he hated the way your words could slice through his arguments, how your vocabulary made him feel stupid. He despised the way his eyes would track you in a hallway, instinctively, like a threat. A very pretty, infuriating threat.

After graduation, he enlisted. It was an escape from a town with too many ghosts, and one living, breathing haunt with your face. The news of his leaving was met with radio silence from you. Good, he’d thought, lying in his bunk, the memory of your last scornful look burning in his mind. He’d become someone else, someone hard and clean and uncomplicated. The Ghost. Simon didn’t have childhood nemeses. Simon had targets. And you were not a target. You were just... history.

Or so he’d believed, until Johnny—good, loyal, painfully social Johnny—had begged him for “moral support” on a double date.

The restaurant was soft. Simon hated it. He catalogued exits and sightlines on instinct, his body tense in the plush chair. He glared at his phone, mentally already gone. This was a pointless mission. A civilian farce.

He heard Johnny’s posture change before he saw the reason. A slight shift, an intake of breath. Simon looked up, a cursory, dismissive glance to acknowledge the variables.

Lena. Smiling, nervous. And you.

His brain didn’t process it as memory. It processed it as a threat. A sudden, catastrophic system failure.

No. Impossible.

The last time he’d seen you, you were a girl in a cap and gown, all sharp angles and sharper tongue. This woman was... more. Softer in some places, harder in others. Her eyes held the same intelligent, assessing light, but it was tempered by years he hadn’t witnessed. She was beautiful. The thought was a violent, unwelcome intrusion. It was immediately followed by a surge of pure, tactical panic.

Abort. Evacuate. The theater is compromised.

His phone slipped from nerveless fingers, hitting the wood with a crack that echoed the one he felt in his sternum. All the hard-won control, the icy composure he’d built over years of service, shattered.

The word was a gut-punch, expelled on a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “You.”

It was recognition. It was an accusation against the universe for this cruel, ironic setup. It was the only syllable that contained the entire history of his miserable, tangled-up feelings.

Johnny, the beautiful, oblivious fool, chirped, “Oh! Do you two know each other?”

Simon forced his muscles to unlock. He leaned back, a picture of forced nonchalance, his eyes never leaving yours. He saw the shock there, watched it morph into the glorious, familiar fury. A part of him he thought long dead stirred awake, relishing it. Here was the fight. Here was the focus.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice was deeper, rougher, but the old, sardonic rhythm fit like a well-worn glove. “You could say that. We go way back.”

He needed to provoke her. He needed to see if the spark was still there, if the ghost that had haunted him could still breathe fire. It was a test, a desperate, stupid probe.

“Still arguing with everyone who looks at you wrong,” he asked, the smirk on his face feeling like a grimace, “or did you finally grow out of that?”

The entire situation was bollocks.

That was Simon’s professional and personal assessment as he sat, stiff-backed, in the uncomfortably trendy restaurant Johnny had picked. A “double date.” A concept so asinine it made his teeth ache. He’d only agreed because Johnny was the only person who’d ever looked at a scowling, fresh-out-of-training commando and seen a friend, and the man had asked with such pathetically hopeful enthusiasm. “Just for moral support, Si. She’s bringin’ a mate. It’ll be painless. We’ll have a pint after.”

Painless. Right.

He scowled at his phone, ignoring the menu. He’d already scanned the room on entry—exits, lighting, clientele, potential threats. Civilian habit now. Everything was soft, warm, and irritatingly safe. A different kind of battlefield. He’d rather be in a real one.

Johnny was chattering next to him, nervous energy rolling off him in waves. Simon grunted in response. His mind was half on the intel report he’d been reading earlier, half on the profound waste of a free evening this was.

Then he felt the shift in the air, the subtle change in Johnny’s posture. He looked up. Johnny was rising, his face splitting into that daft, genuine grin. The girls had arrived.

Simon didn’t stand. A forced courtesy wasn’t in his repertoire. He kept his eyes on his phone, offering only the bare minimum of social acknowledgment—a glance up to assess the two new variables.

He saw Lena first, pretty, smiling tightly. Then his gaze slid to her friend.

The world didn’t stop. In his line of work, it never did. Stopping got you killed. But it lurched. It tilted on its axis with a violent, silent heave.

No.

It was her.

Her hair was different. Her clothes were different. She was a woman, not the gangly, fierce-eyed girl he’d last seen scowling at him from across a graduation stage. But the set of her jaw, the defiant lift of her chin, the way her eyes were already scanning the room with a critical intelligence that missed nothing... it was etched into his fucking DNA.

A memory, sharp and unbidden: Preschool. Her, crying over a lump of clay. Him, feeling his stomach twist, wanting to say it was actually kind of cool, that he liked the weird legs. What came out was, “It looks ugly.” The look she gave him—betrayal, fury—had sealed his fate. He’d doubled down. It was easier to be the villain she already thought he was than to fumble an apology. So he’d stolen her crayon. And she’d kicked his shin. And the war had begun.

A war he’d never understood, even as he’d fought it with every fiber of his being. Through every class competition, every debate where her words cut him sharper than any blade, every glance in the hallway that felt like a physical shove. He’d left for basic thinking distance would erase it. It hadn’t. It had just fossilized the memory, turned her into a static ghost of irritation and unresolved... something.

And now she was here. Walking toward his table. In a nice dress. On his sodding double date.

His phone slipped from his fingers, hitting the wood with a crack that sounded like gunfire in his ears. All his training, all his hard-won control, evaporated into a white-hot static.

The word was out before he could cage it, low and guttural. “You.”

It was all he had. It was accusation, recognition, and sheer, tactical disbelief rolled into one syllable. His mind raced, scrabbling for cover. Abort. This mission is compromised. Enemy contact. Hostile environment.

Johnny, the oblivious idiot, was beaming. “Oh! Do you two know each other?”

Simon forced his body to relax, muscle by muscle. He leaned back in the chair, projecting a casual disdain he didn’t feel. His eyes never left hers. He saw the shock in them melt into familiar, glorious fury. Good. Anger he could work with. Anger was a map he knew how to read.

“Yeah,” he drawled, the old, sarcastic rhythm returning to his voice like a muscle memory. “You could say that. We go way back.”

He needed to establish dominance, to seize the high ground in this unexpected theater. He needed to see if she’d still bite. A part of him, a buried, stupid part, was desperate to know.

“Still arguing with everyone who looks at you wrong,” he asked, the smirk feeling brittle on his face, “or did you finally grow out of that?”