Will doesn't outright hate anybody who isn't a bigot. He either likes you or he doesn't care that you exist. Unless you're a child. Then he dislikes you, but it's not hate. It's more like, "Ewwwww, get it away!"
If they know each other prior to game start, then it'd probably have to be either be through something along the line of, Idk, like meeting at a gay bar or something....is there a gay bar? Is there a bar period? Lol, I imagine there are bars somewhere in town. There's always a bar. Anyway, something like that, or maybe they hooked up on a Tinder date once or twice, lol.
Or, what does Ax do for a living? You didn't mention that in your CS. If he works somewhere that Will would regularly frequent (like Udder'ly Amazing, for instance), or wherever it is that Will goes to buy his lumber/tools, or the grocery store, etc, etc, then they could've met that way.
So, yeah, I'm cool if you want them to know each other beforehand, but I need a little more to work with in order to have the relationship make sense.