Friction

Chapter 7

After two hours on the I-15, Max arrived at Jake's apartment after nine o' clock on a Saturday night.

Jake invited a few friends over. Max even recognized some of them from his Instagram connections. They were all involved in social media in one way or another. Ex-Viners. TikTok dancers. YouTube gamers. Most of them were in their twenties, but a few were also high school dropouts—or recent high school graduates—around Max's age.

The crowd of young, beautiful people mingled and drank. It was a grand fucking time.  Max ended up playing beer pong with Axel and Avon Wilder. Axel and Avon were the sons of retired daytime soap star, Rachel Wilder. They were also well-known vloggers in the YouTube community. The brothers ran a successful channel about nothing and everything all at once: They played modified versions of Russian roulette by eating live worms versus gummy worms. They jumped into half-frozen lakes in penguin costumes. They screamed their catchphrase at the beginning of every video, "We do it for the views! JK! We do it 'cause we love all of you's!"

Axel seemed to know everything there was to know about working as a social media influencer, and Avon's charisma on camera was truly unmatched. Max was in awe of them. He followed them around all night, asking questions at a million miles a minute, taking mental notes, and, to their credit, Axel and Avon only seemed to be mildly annoyed by his relentlessness. Max couldn't remember the last time he had felt so happy or so alive.

These were his people.

This was his tribe.

Max also lost his virginity that night to a very tan, very blonde, and very pretty girl named Everly Gray. She was an IG model with almost 20K followers and a fast-growing beauty channel on YouTube with over 40K subs.

They continued hooking up after Jake's party. Casual sex led to brunches with avocado toast and mimosas. Brunches led to fancy dinners and more Netflix and chilling. Max became a regular on Everly's channel filming videos titled "My BF Does My Makeup" and "10 Questions Girls are Afraid to Ask Guys." Views for Everly's videos that featured Max almost always shot through the roof.

Within weeks of his first appearance on her channel, Everly's subs began trickling over to Max's IG account. It didn't take long for girls to slide into his DMs. They passed along their phone numbers. Sent him topless photos. Asked to meet up in person. Max tried to be as friendly as possible towards his new fans, but he was careful to never flirt back. He had learned this lesson well after his painful break up with Lexi.

When Everly found out about all the females who had been reaching out to him, however, she freaked the fuck out. They fought. They made up. They fought some more. Then, Max walked in on her and Jake one morning, butt naked in bed, after coming home from the gym half an hour early. He dumped her cheating ass right then and there and started looking for a new roommate.

In a stroke of fate—or fuckery—Axel Bronwen texted Max that same night. He was looking to put together a team of up-and-coming influencers to launch a brand new channel. Max had branched out on his own after his success through Everly's channel. He now commanded almost 200K followers on IG and 100K on YT. These were numbers that hadn't gone unnoticed by Axel.

Axel's message flattered the hell out of Max.

'dude... ur exactly what we're looking for. brains, beauty, talent. i know u have what it takes to make it big, bro.'

Axel told Max over the phone that he planned to rent out a mansion in Calabasas for about ten people, ideally five girls and five guys. They would make individualized content and then collaborate weekly on larger projects under one channel, Wilder Ones. Max signed up to work with the brothers right away.

Within months of launching their new channel, Wilder Ones hit one million subs. Six years later, they hit the five million mark. At only twenty-three-years-old, Max became one of their top influencers. He was also the hardest working motherfucker in the house. He slept no more than three to four hours a night. From morning to night, he lived and breathed filming, vlogging, editing—only to wake up the next day to do it all over again with newer, fresher, crazier content. Like skateboarding off the roof of their mansion into an Olympic-sized pool. Or streaking through a public beach wearing nothing but a tube sock.

Sponsorships, collabs, event appearances, and business opportunities flooded Max's inbox. He could barely keep up with his emails. Axel suggested for him to hire a personal assistant.

This was how Lexi re-entered his life.