The Boyfriend League

The Boyfriend League By Rachel Hawthorne

16 years old 'Dani' Danielle Runyon lives in Ragland, Texas and her best friend is 'Bird' Barbara Sawyer. She lives with her sister is Tiffany who is Miss Teen Ragland and totally girly instead of Dani, her father who loves baseball as much as Dani and her mother. Dani and Bird are both tomboys, who loves to play Baseball/softball, but Dani has never really had a boyfriend and she wants to have one this summer. So when she sees in the paper that Ragland Rattlers a baseball team made up of college players who wanted to play baseball during the summer, needs local families to host them this year, Dani jumps at the change and tells her Bírd about her plan. They each get to host a college boy, who can get them to know the team so they can date them, but no dating the guy who gets to live with them each.
Dani gets her parents to do it, but her and her sister can´t date the guy and Bird gets her parents convinced too. Bird gets Mac, while they at Dani´s house gets the shy hottie Jason Davis, who Dani immediately starts crushing on. On the day he gets there Dani smacks right into him in their first meeting. After one of the first games the team invited Dani and Bird with them to get pizza and they accept. After Dani and Jason go for ice cream and Jason finds out her favourite flawor and they soon becomes good buds. At another game the baseball smacks into Dani´s head so she gets a black eye. Her father takes her to the hospital, and the players go home to Bird where there will be a party. At the way home from the hospital she calls Bird and finds out that Bird has been kissing with Brandon a guy on the team and she really likes him. Later Jason comes home and finds Dani in the game room and he has brought movies and ice cream too them, so Dani is really happy that he is here when she couldn´t go to the party. the next day it is raining so the game that day is cancelled, instead the team goes out to get some food, and Jason ask Dani to come. So Dani gets Tiffany to cover her black eye, but she ends up giving her and extreme makeover and at the resturant Mac invites her to the free concerts there is in this city.

On a saturday night there is a game and Bird and Dani goes down to were the players are under the game. Dani says something she shouldn´t have said and finds out that they are really supersticious and the guys looses that game, but Dani just goes home. Later when Jason comes home he finds Dani in his bathtub, because in Dani´s there were Tiffany´s clothe. After Dani finds Jaso and they end up kissing, but quickly breaks it of and make a deal that it never happened. The next day is the day of the concert and Bird, Brandon, Mac and her are going, but in the last minute Tiffany and Jason comes too. At the concert Dani can´t help but think that Mac is more interested in her sister than in her, because he keeps staring at her. But at the end of the concert Mac kisses her right in front of Jason, and Dani doesn´t feel so good about that, but now she has an official boyfriend. A week later because families are hosting the teams players, the team is talking the family´s to the water park for cheap prizes. Mac is out of town, so Jason ask Dani to go just as friends, and Tiffany, Bird and Brandon goes too. Tiffany end up sunbathing, while the 4 others go around trying the rides. The awkward comes and goes between Dani and Jason, esspecially since they are with Bird and Brandon who are all over each other. But Jason and Dani makes a deal after a while to have fun and end up having a good time and even holding hands. At the next game a couple of days later, Jason and Mac seem to have a disagrement on the field and suddenly they are at each other throats. At the afterparty at Bird´s house Mac wont tell her what it was about, and Jason as always at a party is nowhere to be seen. But when Dani comes home that night she finds Jason in the kitchen. He tells her after some convincing that Mac and him got angry, because Jason couldn´t undertsand why he keept hitting sort of on Tiffany when he was with Dani. He also tells her that he really likes her and the kiss. And Dani ends up telling him the whole reason for having a player living in her house, after he tells her that when they went for ice cream at the beginning of the summer and her stuff in her bag falled out, he saw her hottie score, and saw that he had got a 6 and Mac 10. But she tells him it is because he is living in the house, that it would be smarter to give a low grade. Jason then tells her to find out who she wants.

Later that night Tiffany comes into her room and tells her her new idea as Miss Teen Ragland is to do a dog wash´and the money would go to ASPCA, but she doesn´t know who to wash the dogs. Dani then tells her that she could get the team to do it, and Tiff ask her to ask them. And Tiff tells her that she is actually kind of jealous of Dani sometimes because she is so confortable around guys and eventhough Tiff has gone out with a million guys because they think she is hot and is like a queen because of the whole beauti peagent, but that she never know what to talk about. She also tells her that Jason looks at Dani a whole different way and that if their mom saw she would kick Jason out. Dani is really suprised by the things her sister tells her and agrees to ask the guys. At the dog wash Mac and Dani break up and Jason and Dani kiss, but is interupted by Tiffany and Dani gets her to wash a dog with Mac and tells her to just be Tiffany. Jason then invites her to go with him and the team to go see the Rangers play tommorow. She goes to the game with him and at the game there is a kiss cam up and when it falls on Dani and Jason they kiss, and after he doesn´t really have a problem kissing her. When they get home they agree that no kissing in the house when her parents are there, and that they will keep it a secret. But the next night her mom and dad bustes her by saying that they have seen the way they look at each other and that they need Jason to move out. Jason comes down and already have his stuff with him, because him and Dani´s mom made a contract when he first got here: that if he kissed the daughters more than twice he would move out. So now he is going to live with the coach. He also tells her he started falling for her the moment she smacked into him. At the end Tiffany is starting to go to the baseball games and her and Dani are closer and she is wwith Mac who she really likes. Dani is having a problem because what is going to happen to her and Jason, when he in a couple of weeks go back to Austin. But they decide they want to make it work and who knows what the future will bring.

This was a really good, sweet, fast, fun, romantic and even sportie summer book. That i really enjoyed... I kinda got the feeling that Dani´s family is kinda rich.

Grade: 12