Pushing Riley to the Max Quotes

“What people think of us is just, I don’t know, the color in the outline you draw for yourself.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“And it’s also what you said about your parents and you. I wasn’t a good boyfriend before, and I don’t know how now, but I want to. I want to be a better one, the one I think you deserve.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“You managed to slip right through every defense I had and every obstacle thrown in your way and find things in me I didn’t even know were there,” he said, bowing his head. “And instead of appreciating it, trusting that your feelings were right, and acknowledging that we’d gotten as far as we did, I threw it away.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“A heady warmth filled me, starting from where our bodies were touching. I was reminded how much I’d come to rely on and enjoy the steadiness that followed him everywhere he went. Even now, in a dark hour, I could take comfort in his presence and trust his words.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“The idea that the things we relied on could be taken away from us in an instant, leaving us a person we didn’t recognize, was one of the world’s greatest horrors.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Now I knew. Secrets didn’t always have to break people apart. Sometimes, they could bring them closer together.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“risked reaching out and laying my hand over his, ignoring how my fingers trembled before putting them down. It felt like I had made a decision without realizing what I was doing. Maybe this was the much-vaunted love everyone always talked about. Maybe it wasn’t. It would complicate things and make the end even harder, but I wrapped my fingers around his hand all the same and held it.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“You’re who you are, Max, and I-I really like that person,” he said softly. “I thought I was coming here to set out on a path for my career and to make my first step trying to help people finally. Never expected I’d find something like this…like you. Life has so many surprises, and this was definitely one of the better ones.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“This weird, warm, wonderful man deserved to know at least a little kindness for all he had to give the world. And if doing something like this for him made it a little more painful for me when the inevitable came? So be it.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“He was a bundle of things I couldn’t understand, things I could respect, and now it was all merging. It was his compassion that eased my nerves last night, and it had been his boldness that led him to kiss me. It had been his mercy that brought him to tell me the truth about himself to spare me from getting into trouble, and it had been his fire that put me in my place.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, those old versions of yourself never really leave. Plus, sometimes it’s good to keep unhealed versions of yourself, in case you need them.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“How was it that one simple moment, call it what you want, a slip, a moment of weakness, a need I hadn’t let myself feel in forever, whatever. All it had taken was that, and now I was so much more aware of his presence, his movements, and every tone and look on his face. Not there was a lot of expression on his face save for something I could only call guarded, which I had put there.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“it reminded me of that long-ago memory that should have been forgotten, of a boy with soft brown eyes, a kind smile, and lips that, after pressing against mine, had left me tingling and my head confused.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“His eyes drifted down, and I followed his gaze and locked onto our hands, still holding onto one another. It was the perfect opportunity to pull my hand away from his, but I found myself unable to move other than to look up and meet his eyes. There was a glint of an emotion I couldn’t quite make out in the back of his eyes, and I felt my heart give another heavy thump in response.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Despite being around him for only a week, I thought I was getting a pretty good read on his moods. It was a little tricky because they all seemed to manifest as annoyance, exasperation, irritation, and anger. The hard part was flipping the emotions around and looking at the back of them to see what was lurking there.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Sure, seeing Max for the first time had been a…mixed experience. It was difficult to say if he was attractive, but I had felt something for him. That was until I realized he would happily throw me into the path of an oncoming stampede not to have to deal with me anymore.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“He was aware of everything going on around him and wasn’t afraid to push for answers. Or, at the very least, wasn’t shy about letting me know that he knew something was wrong with the entire thing.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“In the growing light of the sun behind me, I could finally make out that they weren’t the brown I suspected. They were the darkest shade of blue I’d ever seen, and it reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents had taken me west to California, a rare treat they could barely afford. We had gone to see the ocean when we arrived but missed the best part of the sunset. Yet the light had been just enough that the water wasn’t quite black yet but a blue so dark. A shade I didn’t know the word for.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“I considered myself self-aware enough to know I was cranky, antisocial, and generally self-isolating, not exactly the materials you used for something as instructive and intimate as a mentor-mentee relationship”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“There was a startling similarity between them, even if Riley was fair-skinned and haired. It was in the wide, hopeful eyes and the easy, somewhat goofy smile that came as easily as flying to a bird.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“I became the quintessential stereotype of the spoiled rich kid with too much money and too little sense. Alcohol, drugs, shady dealings with even shadier people, I had started down a slippery slope without a care about what I was doing or where I was going to end up.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“CEOs and politicians still thrive despite coming under the hammer of justice. Because that justice doesn’t mean shit when you know the right people and have the right money.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Her views on men had always been dim, much like Elijah’s opinion on women. Irene seemed ambivalent about either gender, and I just didn’t like anyone, so I suppose I was the least offensive of the siblings at first glance.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Now that I was ‘rehabilitated,’ my father was trying to get me back into the family fold. Well, not just him. My twin brother and sister were attempting to do the same thing, and while Elijah was doing it under the guise of ‘reconnecting with his wayward sibling’ so he’d look good for another election, Irene was being blunt and outright telling me I needed to take my licks and return to the family so they stopped looking bad.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“never imagined I would one day be one of those inmates who would turn their shitty lives around and then still stick around as a full-fledged, free member of society with a full-time job.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“Garrett Isaiah was a big man in every way, with broad shoulders, beefy arms, and a pronounced gut that showed in every picture. He was either aware he was the complete Texan stereotype with his boots, massive belt buckle, and the clean hat perched atop his head, or he simply embraced it.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max

“To be a ranch hand,” I told her with a smile, excited at the opportunity. Trying to get a spot, even a temporary one, on the Isaiah Ranch was not an easy feat. Well, if you hadn’t broken the law anyway. Isaiah Ranch was one of the few places meant to rehabilitate people, typically men, instead of shipping them off to prison and ‘rehabilitating’ them there.”
― Romeo Alexander, Pushing Riley to the Max