“Fuck you, man. I pick Avery. Vote on it. Who wants Avery to work here?”
Ryder held up his hand, and in a rush, so did Avery. Her sweater inched up and exposed a strip of her bare, creamy stomach. Fuck, she looked soft under all that fabric, and now Weston’s traitor dick was knocking on the seam of his pants. Temptress.
Ryder cocked his head and looked victorious. “Sorry Wessy, two against one. We win.”
Damn it all, Weston wanted to peck down a tree with his bare beak just to work off the frustration. Unable to win, he yelled and turned, and stomped out of the building.
Freaking Avery was going to demolish him, and now Weston’s best friend, his blood brother, was going to help it happen?
Weston gave the raven his body, embracing the blast of pain that ripped through him. Beating his wings against the air currents, he left his pants behind and aimed for the sky to escape the woman who had betrayed him. Who had used him.
There was a reason he was twenty-five and had never had a serious girlfriend.
And that reason was Avery Foley.
Chapter Five
Weston Novak hated her.
Avery tapped her pen in quick succession on the counter as she watched him out the big front window. One week of working for Big Flight, and he’d said maybe three full sentences to her. Ryder had taken over her training completely because Weston could barely stand to look at her.
What an utterly confounding man.
A pathetic part of her wanted to believe he was just an angry person and hated everyone, but he and Ryder joked around constantly, and now watching him converse with their first clients hurt her even deeper. He was perfectly polite and charming with the two couples and a family he and Ryder were about to take out on a two-hour ATV trek through the wilderness.
This morning had been busy, and she and the guys had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off to prepare for the first tour. The phone had been ringing off the hook for new tours since Air Ryder had announced the new business on his social media accounts. These mountains would be a feeding frenzy of hungry women in a matter of days, and something about that really bothered Avery. Ryder was happily taken, paired up with a human he called Sexy Lexi, claimed and everything, which left Weston as the only single between the two.
She would have to watch him flirt with clients and eventually settle down. Just the thought of that made her stomach hurt. She wasn’t supposed to like the Novak Raven, but over the past few days, she’d seen him smile, joke, and work on this place relentlessly. He seemed to know what needed to be done and did it. When plumbing needed fixing, the electric needed work, or an ATV gave them trouble, he just solved the problem. He didn’t look to others for help or stand around looking confused. He got the right tools and worked until it was done.
She’d never met a more capable man, and there was something eternally sexy about that.
In Raven’s Hollow, everyone depended on everyone else. That was the culture—one of complete dependence. Their society didn’t work if any of them grew too independent.
But though Weston was a raven through and through, he had been raised in a community where independence was cultured and encouraged. And that used to scare her—the idea of a society where everyone did what they wanted, but now she thought maybe the Gray Backs had the right of it.
Weston was out here on his own, fixing any and everything. He didn’t need anyone to do anything for him, while she barely had any life skills at all.
The more she observed him, the less he scared her and the more she admired him. That didn’t change the fact that he obviously hated her, though. She was stupid to care for a man who had hurt her so deeply all those years ago, but her heart apparently didn’t give two smelly shits about learning lessons.
Outside the window, Weston clapped an older gentleman on the shoulder and jogged toward the shop. Avery jolted upright and tugged at her shorts, checked to make sure her boobs were still covered by the low scoop of her teal tank top. She still had no idea how Ryder got them printed so fast. The logo across her boobs had an owl and a raven flying on either side of the company name. Ryder probably hadn’t meant to, but the birds were each positioned right over her nipples.
The second Weston walked through the door and saw her waiting, the smile dipped from his face. Something about that change in his expression broke her heart.
His bright green eyes dipped down her neck to her chest and back up. He looked startled for a second, before a frown marred his face once again. “Can you hand me a couple of waters?” he asked gruffly.
Avery ducked her gaze so she wouldn’t see the hate in his. “Sure.” She turned, pulled two bottled waters from the glass refrigerator, and handed them to Weston.
He took them, careful not to touch her hand in the exchange. It was too much.
“Why do you hate me?” she blurted out.
Wes froze, his back to her.
“I mean, I’m trying really hard, and I’ve learned everything I’m supposed to. I know you didn’t want to hire me, but Ryder says I’m doing well, and I’ve booked three new tours in the last hour alone. I just don’t understand. You’re so nice to everyone else.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said in a careful tone, giving her the profile of his face. “I just don’t trust you.”
She huffed a hurt laugh. That was rich. He didn’t trust her?
“You find that funny?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her over his shoulder.
“Yeah.” Feeling ill, she leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest like a shield. “Hilarious. You hurt me deeply—”