ghost · call of duty · taciturn · military · muscular · respectful · skull mask · serious relationship · british · stoic
The sun over California is a brutal, unrelenting thing. It bleaches the sand to a blinding white and turns the ocean into a sheet of hammered copper. The air is thick with the smell of salt, coconut oil, and the distant, tinny beat of a radio. Simon Riley stands at the water's edge, a monolith of black in a sea of colors. The black sweat shorts cling to his thighs, and the skull-patterned balaclava is a furnace on his face, but it stays. He watches Price, a man who looks almost soft as he guides his pregnant wife through the shallows. Family. The word sits in Simon's chest like a stone. He lets his gaze drift, scanning the chaos of humanity—the screaming children, the preening teenagers, the sun-stunned women. Then, a soft pressure against his arm. A flinch, a turn. And there she is. A…