Read Online The Boyfriend League by Rachel Hawthorne - Free Book Online

another tradition. They had them at the opening game, the Fourth of July game, and the final game of the season.
    â€œI know. I do, too.” But I’d hated choosing between watching Jason pitch or seeing the fireworks, between working a shift with Bird or working one without her. Although truthfully, I shouldn’t have any decisions to make.Jason was supposed to be a nonissue.
    In the concession stand, we’d been pretty busy in the beginning, as people arriving at the field had wanted to grab eats before heading to the stands.
    Ours wasn’t a fancy field. A chain-link fence surrounded it. The concession stand was a simple wooden building that looked a lot like the fireworks stands we saw on the side of rural roads when my family took trips across Texas. We had a slight breeze blowing through the open windows and a small, noisy floor fan keeping us cool.
    As Miss Teen Ragland, Tiffany was involved in a lot of local fund-raising efforts. Maybe I should talk to her about raising funds to improve the working conditions in the concession stand.
    Two host moms were taking orders and handling the money. Not that anyone didn’t trust us, but I think they saw Bird and me as the grunt workers. They called out what they needed, and she and I filled the orders: Cokes (in Texas, all soft drinks are called Cokes), water, popcorn, chips, nachos, and the mostpopular item, hot dogs. Thank goodness all we had to do to prepare the hot dogs was slap a wiener in a bun and wrap it in foil. A small table near the concession stand housed the mustard and relish, so people could fix their dogs the way they wanted them.
    As a rule, I didn’t think anything was tastier than a ballpark hot dog, but smelling them cooking for more than an hour was causing me to lose my appetite.
    â€œAt least we’ll have the party afterward,” Bird said.
    Her parents had agreed to let her invite the team to her house for an opening game kickoff party—although we weren’t really kicking off the opening game, since the party followed it, but we all knew what it meant. An excuse to party. Of course, she’d invited the host families as well. She hoped most of the parents would be too tired to come.
    Suddenly the crowd released an excited roar and thunderous applause.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    Bird and I asked at the same time. And ofcourse, no one could see the field, so no one knew, but we kept asking until one of the newer customers, straight from the stands, was able to tell us that Bentley had hit a home run.
    Bird didn’t know whether to be thrilled for his success or disappointed she’d missed seeing it.
    â€œHe’ll hit another one before the summer is over,” I said, trying to console her.
    â€œI know.” She lifted her shoulders, then dropped them back down. “I really like him, Dani. Even though we’ve only talked a couple of times, we have so much in common.”
    â€œThree hot dogs!” one of the moms yelled back to us.
    â€œTwo popcorns!”
    Using a pair of tongs, Bird grabbed one of the bobbing wieners while I snatched a sack for the popcorn. With an amazing flick and swoop of my wrist, I had it opened and ready so I could scoop popcorn into it.
    â€œWhat do you have in common?” I asked as I squirted butter over sack one, then sack two of popcorn.
    â€œBaseball, the kind of movies we like towatch, television shows, music. You name it. Speaking of music, we’ve been talking about maybe catching a free concert at the amphitheater next week. He hasn’t actually asked, but I’ve been dropping some blatant hints that I was interested. Stephanie says guys are shy about asking unless they know they won’t get turned down. So I pretty much have done everything except tattoo it across my forehead. Anyway, if he does ask, do you want to come with us?”
    I turned and placed the sacks on the counter, right beside this huge jar of