Due to his growing reservations about Nina's character, Max spent the next few weeks trying to distance himself from her. He no longer sought her out around the apartment complex and purposely made himself less available by waiting at least five or six hours every time before texting her back.

Maybe he was being petty, maybe he was being paranoid, maybe Nina hadn't even laid eyes on Lexi's video, but he had been burned too many times by opportunistic bitches to trust in anyone fully. Max wanted to test Nina.

Would she get desperate once he pulled away from her?

Would it trigger her to reveal what she really wanted from him?

For days, Max continued to give her the cold shoulder, but Nina seemed unfazed by his behavior. She didn't try harder to reach out to him. As a matter of fact, her texts gradually became even less responsive than his lagging replies. Eventually, she stopped texting altogether.

After about two weeks or so, it was Max himself, and not Nina, who started to feel antsy. In Nina's defense, she didn't seem to be playing games. Max observed that she appeared genuinely busy. Nina worked a lot. The walls on their floor were thin. From inside his apartment, Max could hear the sounds of her front door opening and closing. From Monday through Friday, Nina left around seven in the morning and usually didn't return until eight in the evening.

Max knew Nina was employed at a large media corporation from their past conversations, but she never went into detail about what actually entailed. Max assumed she worked as an administrative assistant or some other entry-level position. Nina dressed to the nines for work, donning expensive-looking silk blouses, perfectly tailored pencil skirts that hugged her ass in all the right places, and sky-high stilettos with red-soled bottoms. The clothes made her look older and more buttoned-up, but she was still fucking hot in Max's opinion.

Max, on the other hand, was decidedly less busy than Nina. In between working out, listening to podcasts, replying to his backlog of emails at snail speed, and attempting to film something decent for his YouTube channel, Max would occasionally check his phone to see if, maybe, Nina had decided to message him. He was always disappointed.

A few more days went by before Max finally broke down and texted her on a Thursday night: hey.

Two hours later, Nina replied: Hey!

Unable to resist, Max sent back a response right away: been busy?

A minute later, his phone dinged: Yes.

He wrote back: me too.

When she didn't respond immediately, Max hesitated before sending out his next message: u free this weekend?

Her response was very up in the air: Depends.

Max asked: on what?

Nina stated bluntly: You.

Using his thumbs, he tapped back another reply: wtf?

Nina explained: You've been acting weird lately. Why?

Max didn't know whether he should feel happy that Nina finally noticed that he had been testing her. Or annoyed at how long it had taken her to address the issue.

After typing out and deleting three different responses, Max finally settled on the fourth draft. He added an emoji to make the text seem more casual: just trying to figure you out. 😉

He pressed 'send' and tried not to break out in a nervous sweat.

How was Nina going to react?

Nina's comeback didn't pull any punches: What the hell does that mean?

Max stewed and simmered for a few minutes before he decided to tell her what was really on his mind: in my line of work, people always want something from me. sometimes, they approach me like they want to be friends, but their intentions aren't pure...

Nina seemed to catch his drift and sent back: Are you worried about my intentions, Max?

Max admitted: a little

Her next response took way longer than Max expected. The waiting made him anxious.

Finally, his phone dinged: Come over? Let's talk.

Max's blue-green eyes grew round as he processed her invitation. His mind whirled into a frenzy of agitated, excited energy.

Fuck!

He was only wearing boxers!

He needed to get dressed!

He needed to shave!

He needed to shower!

Max dashed into his bathroom to get ready. Fifteen minutes later, freshly shaven and showered, Max walked across the hall to knock on Nina's door. She opened it. His gaze scanned her from top to bottom. Her long black-brown hair was wrapped on top of her head in a messy bun. She wore a large oversized gray Harvard T-shirt. The hem hung low on her thighs.

Was she even wearing shorts?

Max felt irritated. The girl clearly hadn't put as much effort into this meeting as he had, but she still looked cute as hell. Life simply wasn't fucking fair sometimes.

"Hey," he greeted her.

"Hey," Nina said with a slight smile. "You actually came."

"Yeah, I actually came."

She widened the crack in her door and gestured for him to enter. Max followed her inside. She led him to the ugly brown plaid couch in her living room. They sat down a few feet apart from each other.

Nina turned to him. "You wanna tell me what's going on?"

Max had so much he wanted to say to Nina, but, now that he was actually sitting in front of her, he didn't know exactly where to begin. "I..."

She waited patiently.

It took him a while to find his words. "I'm not sure if you knew this about me, but, like, I'm a vlogger. I'm pretty good at it, too, so... a lot of assholes try to get close to me. And sometimes I dunno if they like me for me. Or if they want something in return."

She didn't look taken aback by what he was insinuating at all.

"I know who you are," Nina stated simply.

Wait, what?

She already knew about him?

Doubts began to swirl in Max's mind.

How could she be so calm about admitting something like that?

Was she a clout chaser like everyone else?

Max's pulse raced. That must mean she already knew about Lexi's video.

Did she find out about it before or after they hung out in her apartment last time?

Before Max could continue down this deranged line of thought, Nina knocked him off his game once more. In a business-like manner, she proceeded to summarize the highs and lows of Max's entire career as though she was pitching his profile to an agent, "You started out on IG. By the time you were seventeen, your account grew to 200,000 followers. Around that same year, you pivoted to YouTube and signed with the Wilder brothers, reaching 5.2 million subscribers in four years—which is phenomenal growth, by the way—and you started pulling in six-digit figures annually from sponsorships and events. But, then, a scandal with your ex pulled you out of the spotlight for the last few months. Now, you're contemplating your next move for a comeback, and you're worried that I might be here to mess that up for you."

Max started freaking out, "For fuck's sake, Nina! How do you know all of this shit about me? You stalking me or something? I mean, I've met some crazy-ass fans in my time, but you're really taking things to the next level."

Nina sighed. "Chill, Max, I'm not a psycho. It's actually my job to know shit like this about influencers like you. I work in the investment management department at Ascension Media. My team and I research and review tens of thousands of top social media influencers, rising trends, and tech and media startups on a regular basis. We're in charge of asset allocation and oversee the company's portfolio strategy and implementation. I wouldn't be very good at my job if I didn't know what's going on in pop culture and who's making money and gaining traction in these spaces."

Max tried to wrap his head around everything she just shared with him. "So... you're, like, a financial analyst or something?"

"I used to be," Nina replied brusquely, "on Wall Street. But I hated it. I guess that's why I ended up here. On the other side of the country. Ascension offered me a managerial position right when I was about to blow out my brains at my old investment bank. It's a grind out here as well, but I like it better so far."

Max's mouth gaped wide open. "Well, shit."

Just like that, Nina rendered him semi-speechless yet again. He didn't know how to feel about his pretty neighbor's formidable skill set. It was kind of intimidating. But also a turn-on. His Lower Brain gave a twitch of approval.

Yep, definitely a turn-on.