Things are heating up for Riley Green on Marshals.

He made his acting debut on the Yellowstone spinoff Marshals a couple weeks ago as Garrett, a former Navy SEAL teammate of Kayce Dutton’s (Luke Grimes), who arrives at the ranch, unexpectedly, hoping to lean on his friends Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) and Cal (Logan Marshall-Green) to help “put the demons of his past to rest.”

Grimes said in a previous interview that it wasn’t just as easy as snapping his fingers to get Riley a part on the show… Grimes had the idea to get Riley on during a songwriting session when Riley talked about his interest in acting, and Grimes says a lightbulb went off and he wanted to get him on Marshals. He spoke with showrunner Spencer Hudnut, who loved the idea, so they wrote Riley in since this was all happening as the show was starting to come together.

But Luke revealed during a radio interview with Bev Rainey for her Country Nights Live with Bev Rainey radio show that network executives didn’t know “how big of a deal Riley is” in the country music world, so they made him audition just like any other actor, and told them they “should not” make him do that, but they weren’t having it:

“Oh yeah, that all happened because we were writing a song here. He had talked about wanting to act, and I’m sitting there, and that’s when ‘Marshals’ was starting to come together, and a little lightbulb sort of went off, I was like, ‘Hey, you should you should be in my show.’

Brought it up to my showrunner now, and he loved the idea as a fan of Riley’s. We wrote him a part, and we thought, great, this is happening. And then the network, they don’t really know the country music scene, so they weren’t super aware of how big of a deal Riley is.

So they made him audition, which I thought was really funny. I was like, ‘You guys, you should not make this guy do this.’”

Riley has since said he’s glad he had to audition, and he’s done a pretty solid job not only considering that Garrett is a very complex character, but also the fact that this is Riley’s first official acting role (other than some of his music videos).

And the writers over at Marshals weren’t going to let Riley get away from his first gig without him having a love interest, and during this week’s episode, Garrett and Andrea (Ash Santos) are kicking things up a notch.

In a clip revealed by People, you see Kayce walk into his kitchen to see her making coffee, telling her he didn’t realize she was still there.

She replies:

“I ain’t no two-cheek sneak. You want some joe?” 

Right on cue, Garrett walks in to say:

“I’ll tell you what, coyote. If we had teammates like Andrea in the Navy, I’d still be a SEAL.”

Kayce responds:

“Being held captive by the Cleggs wasn’t torture enough?” 

Of course, while Andrea is a bad*** US marshal, she’s also just a girl, and she explained that she just couldn’t resist the “power of a country ballad,” as Riley played his song “My Way” during last week’s episode:

“Who knew? I can’t resist the power of a country ballad.”

The full episode will play out tonight, but in the clip, we do see Garrett and Andrea share a kiss, after Kayce tells Garrett that he needs help prepping the lower pastures because he has to “earn room and board for your overnight guest.” Fair enough…

They also have Garrett walk out shirtless, and I think they’re certainly using Riley to his full potential from the singing to putting his good looks on full display…