Jeudi 8:00 (Thursday 8am)
Charles can't stop thinking about the look she'd given him.
Manon had been so damn angry.
She'd been right, though. How had he not realised they'd scheduled the auction for the same night as the collection?
No wonder he can't get a fucking date with her. He keeps doing dumb shit without meaning to.
He walks into the locker room where the rest of the basketball team are already gathered. He'd called a team meeting, determined to fix the mess he'd made.
"Hey guys, I wanted to talk to you about something" he says loudly. The room falls silent as everyone looks at him.
"So it's come to my attention that our auction is on the same night as the migrant's association clothing collection that's been planned for a while."
Everyone in the room gives him confused looks.
Good, so it wasn't just him who hadn't known it was on.
"Now I think it's probably for the best if we move our auction to Saturday."
Instantly most of the boys in the room are shaking their heads or voicing their disapproval.
"We've already advertised it for Friday, Charles. We can't move it, no one will come" says a boy leaning against a locker to Charles' right.
"I'm pretty sure they'll come on Saturday" Charles says in a flat tone.
"Isn't there some house party on Saturday? More people will go to that than a clothing drive. That's bigger competition" someone yells out.
Charles wants to hit him. He was hoping no one would bring that up.
"Well, what if we move it back a bit? So people have more time to go to the collection before they come to our auction" he suggests.
"It's already starting at 9:30, Charles. We can't move it back" scoffs a boy at the back of the room.
"Yeah there's no way a clothing collection is going that late" says someone else.
Charles sighs. "Okay, fine. Well why don't we go help out for a bit at the collection at the start of the night?"
That doesn't go down well either. He'd never realised how fucking entitled these guys were.
"C'mon guys it'd be good for our image, you could put it on Instagram that you were there" Charles says, trying to play into their desire to have a good public image.
"No way. I'm not wasting my Friday night going to some clothing collection when I could pre-drink instead" says someone, others nodding in agreement with him.
"It makes us look really bad if we don't do anything" Charles tries again.
"Why don't we just give the migrants a cut of the proceeds or something? Like five percent? That way we don't have to go" says one of the boys. Quickly there are sounds of approval from the majority of boys in the room.
"That'll be enough, we'll look fine if we do that" says someone else.
Charles sighs, defeated. At least it's something. "Yeah guys, I guess that might be enough."
Slowly the boys filter out of the room, and it's just Charles and Alex.
"Five percent isn't enough" says Charles.
"We can give them more than that" Alex says, looking lost in thought.
There's silence for a minute before Alex speaks again. "This is about her, isn't it? She organised the collection, right?"
"I can't do this to her" Charles groans, running his hands down his face.
"What if we tell everyone we can to head there before they come to the auction?" Alex pauses, smirking, then continues. "Then when she comes to the auction tell her the collection was successful because of you and she'll be all yours, man."
Charles rolls his eyes. "She'd scoff at me and walk away, dude. But making everyone we can go there first, that's not a bad idea."
"The shit you're doing to get this girl, man" Alex says as he rolls his eyes back at Charles.
Charles shrugs "I like her".
"Yeah you're fucking whipped" Alex laughs.
Charles gives him a look "you should try it".
Alex smiles widely. "Shut up. You should tell her we're sending everyone there, come on."
Charles shakes his head. "I don't want her to know we're doing it, she'll want it to be her accomplishment if everyone shows up."
There was silence for a second, Charles thinking about the angry look on Manon's face again.
"She probably won't even show up to the auction" he says.
Alex smiles, "tell her you'll only donate the money if she comes then. She doesn't need to know you'll do it anyway."