The man was too damn gorgeous to be so cranky, Demetri Urban thought as he studied the picture of Jackson Webb that he'd moved from the mantle to the coffee table. Okay, he was feeling a bit stalker-ish but who could blame him. Jackson was physical perfection. He wasn't shallow in the least. Others might not find the snarling man attractive, but Dem wanted to cuddle Jackson—preferably naked.

He'd been warned it was a bad idea, yet it didn't change the urge. Seeing him earlier while Wren arrested Jackson sealed the deal. Jackson wore this little half smile that would probably terrify normal people—good thing he wasn't normal. Nowhere near.

“You're like some teenage girl with a crush,” Gideon's amused voice came from behind him.

He didn't look away from the picture.

“Should I write him a love note? Ask him to circle yes or no if he wants to go steady?”

“Dem, I wouldn't put it passed you.”

Gideon sat down beside him, and Dem leaned to the side to rest his head on Gideon's shoulder. The handsome redhead had been his friend for almost ten years—since the first time Gideon had employed him as a caterer for Gideon’s event company.

He was exhausted. The kitchen at Heidi's Diner was busy as fuck. It was a one-person operation so different from his former team back in New York. It was harder and more stressful to maneuver with his arm crutches, and by the end of the night, his hips and thighs ached to the point he needed to take one of his pain pills.

He wouldn't complain though, he was healthy except for his dodgy hip joints and pelvis. He worked out enough to keep the bone degeneration at a minimum, but that wasn't a guarantee for his future. So many surgeries had damaged the bone that he didn’t know how much longer before he might need more corrective action. He didn’t know if he wanted to go under the knife again. He was damn tired of hospitals and too many doctors with excuses of we just don’t know.

His parents hadn't treated him different growing up. Whatever he wanted to do, he was encouraged and never told he couldn't, at least not by his parents.

He was tired of thinking about his aching body and wanted more pleasant things to think about. “Tell me more about him.”

“Dem.”

Gideon’s tone held a clear warning, but Jackson was Gideon’s friend, one of his best from what he’d heard. Why couldn’t he have an interest in the man? Even if that interest wasn’t returned, everyone needed a friend, no one ever had enough of those.

“Don't Dem me. Tell me more.”

“Joker—”

“Jackson.”

He hated when they called Jackson Joker, he had a perfectly sexy name to go with the bad boy image, why not use it?

“I can already see having you come stay here was a mistake.”

“Don't be mean.”

“Jo—Jackson doesn't like anybody really except Harper, everyone else he tolerates.”

“He looks hot in handcuffs.”

“Please never say that again. You, Jackson and handcuffs is a visual I don't need. Dem, I'm serious, never touch Joker. Never come up behind him. His fight instinct is strong.”

“He just needs some good loving and some cuddles.”

“I'm serious. Joker hasn't had the easiest life, and that's an understatement. He's one of my best friends, but he is not your type.”

“I'm almost forty, let me be the judge of that.”

Forty was a couple years away, but it was close enough. He didn’t act his age, didn’t want to miss an opportunity in life with doubts and what ifs. Life was meant to be lived to the fullest before it was gone in the blink of an eye. Tomorrow wasn’t a guarantee, he didn’t want to wake up in the morning and regret he didn’t take a chance—grab onto an opportunity.

Gideon sighed. “Don't say I didn't warn you.”

“I won't.”

“I'm off to join my beautiful wife in bed. You need help to your room?”

Anyone else and he'd be offended by that question, but Gideon was there the day the doctors told him he'd need to rely on arm crutches. His friend only wanted to help.

“No, I'm going to sit here for a bit. I'm still on New York time. It's making the new day job hell.”

“No more five a.m. bedtime for you.”

Gideon kissed his forehead, and he smiled as his friend patted his thigh. He straightened to let Gideon up and sunk back into the thick cushions.

“Goodnight, Dem.”

“You too.”

He waited until he was alone to let his mind wander to what made him take a working vacation in a small Georgia town. He had been with his ex for two years, and the relationship was great. They didn't argue any more than any other couple. They had sex regularly, but it seemed more like a requisite requirement. Okay, the sex wasn’t even vanilla, it had no flavor at all. His ex was just too serious. Fun wasn't in Aiden’s vocabulary. He needed silly. Needed to be able to laugh.

Aiden didn't possess that kind of simple joy in life. It sucked the life from him. Unfortunately, when you dated your boss, a breakup left you unemployed as well. He didn't mind losing his job. He didn't mind taking a semi-vacation to stay with Gideon and Harper. Going where life took him was just something he did.

He'd been born with a deformity of the hips and pelvis, surgery was done to correct it, but nothing worked forever. After he’d quit growing, they performed another surgery, and he had more metal in his hips and pelvis than bone. Growing up, the reconstruction worked, gave him normal ability to walk, running wasn't his specialty but who the fuck loved to run?

The degeneration of the surrounding bone started in his late twenties and would worsen as he got older, he was a pro at working a kitchen. He'd found a system that worked for him.

There was something he was positive about. He trusted in his gut, and it told him Jackson Webb needed him. Over the past few weeks, he'd studied Jackson from the window of his kitchen.

Jackson always sat in booth six, his back to the wall with a full view of the front door and all exits. He ordered six pancakes, with tons of butter, but always went light on the syrup. Which in his opinion was the best part of pancakes, downing them in warm, sticky syrup. Jackson had exactly three cups of black, unsweetened coffee. Every morning, seven days a week, but he only saw Jackson five days a week. Since Heidi gave him weekends off.

He'd been waiting for Jackson to come out to the farm, but the man continued to make himself scarce. He needed to get the man's attention. How the hell was he supposed to do that when he knew Jackson avoided the farm because he was there?

He dug his phone out from under his thigh, unlocked it, and he hit the speed dial for his mom.

“You better tell me you’re in Vegas getting married if you’re calling me at four a.m.”

He snorted at his mother’s disgruntled sleepy voice.

“I have to get the man to notice me first, Ma.”

He held the phone away from his ear as his mom screamed like a teenage girl. Gretchen Urban was like Super Mom. She never let anything get her down. He’d learned early, he’d gotten his personality from her.

Now, he loved his Da, but Cliff Urban was a total curmudgeon. It was beyond cute seeing his stoic and cranky dad cater to his wife’s every whim. Last year, Gretchen wanted to live and tour Europe, and Cliff made it happen even as he complained the entire way.

“Gretchen, do you know what damn time it is?”

“Shut up, dear, our son has a crush. Oh, we haven’t had crush conversations in forever.”

“Better than the one he spent the last two years with?”

“I don’t know, I’m going to make coffee, go back to sleep.”

He smiled as he listened to masculine grumbling and then the bed creaked.

“So, tell me about this boy?”

“I don’t think he’s much of a boy, maybe my age.”

“Mature, good, does he at least have a sense of humor.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him yet, but, Ma…” He dragged out the last word for like twenty syllables. “He’s so hot in handcuffs.”

“Nice, what else?” His mother gasp was followed by a long pause. “You didn’t hook up and not exchange info? Please tell me you were safe.”

“What about me having not talked to him yet didn’t you get? He was being arrested.”

“Son.”

“Don’t, he stood up for one of his best friends. She was being harassed, he took care of the situation, and he was picked up for it.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet. So, what’s the problem?”

“He’s a bit cranky. Gideon told me he didn’t have the easiest time growing up.”

“Then treat him like I did your father.”

“Um, Ma, didn’t Da kidnap you and leave you in the middle of nowhere?”

He resisted the urge to laugh, his mother had recounted the story so many times over the years while his father snapped his paper and rolled his eyes. His mother, a free-spirited young woman of eighteen, and his father almost ten years her senior.

Cliff had worked for her father for several years as a ranch hand. As soon as she'd turned eighteen, she went on a single-minded hunt for her prey. His father put up with it for a whole Summer waiting for her to go away to college, but finding his lingerie clad boss’ daughter in his bed was the last straw. He hogtied her and took her to the farthest border of the ranch and left her. Only thirty minutes passed before his father was back and the rest was history. They'd been together ever since.

“It was just his way of flirting, son, he did come back for me.”

“Yes, he did. But I'm not hog-tying Jackson or wearing lingerie.”

“Then be boring about it and ask him on a date.”

“Easier said than—”

“We didn't raise you with a defeatist attitude, Demetri.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You'll figure it out. So, tell me how everything’s going in your new home.”

He settled in to catch up with his mother, but at the back of his mind, he plotted how to make Jackson Webb his.