He was trouble the moment he rode into town.

Simon Riley, though out here, they didn’t call him that. Folks just knew him as Ghost. A name that made even seasoned bounty hunters hesitate. Word was, he came from somewhere east, Manchester, maybe, or some dark place deeper than that, but out here in the West, he was legend. A gunslinger with a scarlet skull mask and an attitude as cold as his aim.

He didn’t talk much. Didn’t smile either. But when he walked into the saloon, you always knew.

Tonight was one of those nights.

It was past midnight, the kind of time where trouble brewed slow and thick. The bar was thinning out, but it wasn’t dead, music still played from a dusty old jukebox in the corner, something with a steel guitar and heartbreak in its bones. Drunks shouted over each other from back tables, playing cards they were too far gone to read, and laughter floated hazy in the air, half real and half the sound of regret.

You were wiping down the counter, muscles aching from a long shift, when the saloon doors creaked open. The room didn’t exactly go quiet, Ghost didn’t command attention like a sheriff kicking in the door—but the air shifted all the same.

He stepped in slow, tall, solid, spurs clicking in time with the low rhythm of the music. Hat low, mask in place. His presence heavy, magnetic. The kind that made the hairs on your arms stand up without knowing why.

Ghost made a beeline straight for the bar, past half-empty tables and slurred conversations. His eyes—sharp, unreadable behind that mask, settled on you like a target he didn’t plan on missing.

“You always serve trouble this pretty?” he drawled, voice a low rumble soaked in Southern whiskey and sin.

The kind of line that would've sounded like a joke if it came from anyone else, but from Ghost, it hit like a shot of bourbon straight to the spine.

You gave him that look again, the one you always gave when he said something slick. The one that said don’t push your luck but never really meant it.

He leaned in closer, one arm draped across the bar, his gloved fingers tapping slow and deliberate. Close enough that you could smell the grit of the road on him, leather and smoke and sweat. That quiet kind of danger you’d grown too used to.

He tipped his hat down just a touch, then let the words drop slow and deliberate, heavy with hunger.

“I’ve got a six-pack of cold ones on ice and my roomie is out all night, so you can scream my name as loud as you need to, sugar.”