Full Tilt Read Online Free

park rave. Never in the same place twice. Attendance by invitation only.”
    “And we’ve got an invitation,” said Quinn.
    “Correction: I’ve got an invitation.”
    Quinn made a face. “What good is it to you? You’ll never go!”
    “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.” But we all knew I wouldn’t. I turned a corner, arm over arm, then returned my hands to ten and two.
    “You know what your problem is—” said Russ, but Maggie didn’t let him finish the thought. She grabbed the invitation from him.
    “If Blake doesn’t want to go, then he doesn’t have to go.” She slipped the card back into the inbred bear’s pocket. “It’s probably overrated, anyway.”
    I held back a smile. Whenever I was at the short end of a disagreement, Maggie always shifted the balance to my side.
    I dropped off Russ, then Maggie. As I worked my way through the neighborhood toward our house, Quinn set his mouth on cruise control, constantly complaining about how I came to a complete three-second stop at every stop sign.
    “C’mon! At this time of night, stop signs are optional.”
    “Is there any rule that’s not optional for you?”
    Then, as I braked for the next stop sign, a little green car barreled across the intersection, completely ignoring the four-way stop.
    “See? If I didn’t stop, we would have smashed into that Pinto. Do you know what happens when you hit a Pinto?”
    “What?”
    “They blow up!”
    “Cool!” said Quinn.
    As it turned out, explosive Pintos were the least of our problems. I could tell what type of evening it was going to be when we drove up to our house and saw Mom out front with Carl, boyfriend of the month.
    So you get the complete picture, I ought to explain about my mother and her boyfriends. You see, Mom is sort of like a blue whale. I don’t mean she’s big—she’s actually on the small side. What I mean is that Mom filters losers through her baleen as if they were krill. I don’t know why; she’s a good person with a big heart—enough of a heart to raise Quinn and me alone on what little she makes. But when it comes to herself, I don’t know, it’s like she never aims as high as she deserves. She could have graduated college, but she dropped out because Dad wanted her to. Then when Dad left, she never went back, because she had to support us.
    Most of the guys she’s dated were like Dad. They drank too much, demanded too much, and when it cametime to give something back, they bailed. But her latest boyfriend seemed to be an exception to the rule. Aside from a bad hair transplant that looked like rows of wheat and a wardrobe that was just a bit too young for him, Carl seemed to be an okay guy. But I reserve judgment on anyone Mom filters through her baleen.
    Now, as I drove up, Carl had a new mark against him, because he was making out with Mom on the porch—and I mean really making out, the way I should have been doing at around this time in my life. I was thankful we’d dropped Maggie and Russ off already so they didn’t have to witness the scene.
    “Now, that’s what I call a vomit ride,” I told Quinn as we pulled up the driveway. He snickered. No matter what disagreements we had, we were of one mind when it came to Mom and her boyfriends.
    As soon as we got out of the car, they stopped sucking face. Mom looked embarrassed at having been caught.
    “Hi, guys,” Carl said. He noticed the bear I held. “Looks like you came up a winner.”
    “Carl was just saying good-bye,” Mom said.
    “Really,” I said. “He must speak in tongues.”
    That got me a high five from Quinn. When we were done laughing, Mom raised her eyebrows and said, “Are you done having your joke at our expense?”
    Oh, please don’t try to sound parental now. “Yeah. Sorry.”
    “Good, because Carl and I have an announcement to make.” She took his hand, and I felt my gut beginning to collapse into a knot, because I knew what she was going to say. I knew because of the ring I saw on