Cullinan 1 Quotes

When life fucks you over, you don't slow down. You just keep going, keep moving, eyes peeled for the next opportunity, the next dance. Don't get bogged down in the endings or the parts where you know you're fucked even before you get there. Bluff, baby. Bluff until they all fold or until you start to believe it yourself. If you fail, get up and bluff again. ~ Heidi Cullinan

What did I do to deserve you?"
"You told me not to throw away my work. You chased me down and made me open up. Enough to see things I needed to see." Xander stepped closer and put a hand carefully on Skylar's hip. "This is how I make love to you, Skylar Stone. I make you take off your clothes and spread your legs for me. I get you to tell me stories of goddesses and turn you into one. I turn your deepest fears into the most beautiful painting I know how to create, and then I stay up all night to give it to you." He rested his nose on Skylar's shoulder, nipping him smartly. "The very idea I need to slobber on a body part to do it is insulting."
Without turning around, Skylar found Xander's hand and laced their fingers tight. "What happens if I tell you that I love you?"
Xander shut his eyes, smiling into Skylar's skin as his heart soared. He squeezed their joined hands tighter. "I'll tell you that I love you back. ~ Heidi Cullinan

He wondered if this, more than guilt, was what had been holding him back. It wasn't that he was punishing himself as much as it was that he didn't really want anything anymore. But was that true? Did he really not want anything? What did he want to do? What did he want, period? ~ Heidi Cullinan

Hey…no more dates with people for favors, okay?"
"No more dates for favors." Skylar squeezed Xander's hand gently. "Can…can I have one with you, though?"
Xander's heart fluttered, grew wings, and sailed lazily into the sky. "You can have as many as you want. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Sometimes I feel like everyone else is carrying a bucket of water but I'm trying to carry an ocean. its very hard. sometimes I would rather not carry my ocean, even if it meant I couldn't be alive. ~ Heidi Cullinan

And just like that, it's over. And if you'd been stupid enough to let hope live, or if you'd been fool enough to believe the promise, you'd be crushed. Ruined by that bottle. But I know better now. I kill the hope before it can start. I ignore the promises. That's how I survive." He looked over at Vince, his blue eyes wide and vulnerable. "That's the only way to survive."

It was the saddest thing Vince had ever heard, this reasoning that living in such a dark, horrible place was the only way Trey had to protect himself from the pain. ~ Heidi Cullinan

I can't live in the dorms and I can't stop people from calling me a freak, but I can always solve for X. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Do you know what I wish?" Skylar held Xander's hand tight as he looked up at the falling leaves. "I wish we could stand like this in Japan, under real cherry trees. Ones in bloom."
"We have real cherry trees in the United States, you know."
"The ones in Japan feel more real, somehow."
Xander smiled. "Then let's make it a vow. Someday we'll stand under cherry blossoms in Japan."
Skylar smiled back, and there was only weariness, no more shadows in his face now. "It's a promise. ~ Heidi Cullinan

I just keep thinking that summer is here and the sun is shining and I have the whole wide sky to fly in. ~ Thomas Cullinan

So long as Sam wanted to take it up the ass with another dick in his mouth instead of politely pounding a pussy, he couldn't belong. Not here. Not ever. Any wedding Sam planned in this environment wouldn't just be an also-ran. It would be nothing short of a total disaster. ~ Heidi Cullinan

He gave himself to them completely, with no guilt, no shame, no reservation, and in that surrender he found a quiet, shining pearl he had never known existed - himself. He was Sam. He was Sunshine. He was Peaches. ~ Heidi Cullinan

mesmerizing them with his secret librarian powers. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Louisa raised an eyebrow. Is he - how shall I put it delicately - a simple man? ~ Heidi Cullinan

I should probably be noble and tell you I'll let you go if it's what you want, but I'm a spoiled, selfish brat. I'll follow you, beg you, bribe you to stay. Because you're the first one to make it to my island. I don't want to let you leave. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Ride, authors. Write a ride. Figure out what yours is, and then pimp the ever-living shit out of it. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Michael turned his head enough to pres a kiss against Wes's chest. "You are good for me."
Wes swallowed a different kind of lump, a full, radiant blockage rather than a hollow one. I love you. I love you like a fool. I would give up all the orchids in the world just to lie for an afternoon like this with you. ~ Heidi Cullinan

In fact we are your second home, forever, full stop. You need milk money, somewhere to wash your clothes? You come to me. You need clothes? Me. A hug, a smile, a night at the movies--me." He crushed Aaron's face into his neck. "Sometimes we need a place to be completely safe, somewhere boring that isn't about sex or adventure or wild hairs. I am that place for you. As long as you want it, for ten minutes or ten hours or ten thousand years: I am your safe place. No matter what happens, no matter who leaves you or hurts you. I am your safe place. ~ Heidi Cullinan

The chairs and tables, decorated with runners of Italian silk, were Disney-movie themed, because Kelly ate, breathed and farted Disney. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Steve smiled, the rug not only pulled out from under him but rolled up and put away. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Xander saw him to the door. It wasn't awkward per se, but it was a…charged goodbye. They were both aware everything had changed. That they'd cracked into something good, but scary. Fragile. Something to be treated with care.
He vowed to not mess this friendship up, to not muddy it or screw with it in any way. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Walter Lucas, you're going to marry me. And you're getting epically laid as soon as we get home. ~ Heidi Cullinan

The song was "I See the Light", another Tangled number. Aaron sang the male part of the duet, and Walter's friend Rose did a less-than-Mina soprano, but mostly the music fell away in the brilliant presence of the two young men on the dance floor. ~ Heidi Cullinan

I'm so in love with him I can't even ask him out. I want to lie at his feet, want to smooth out all the wrinkles in his life and make everything okay. ~ Heidi Cullinan

As he returned to the bed, he could see Vallant eyeing him warily, but he ignored this, sat on the opposite end and braced the pad on his knee.
You think after all that, I will leave? What sort of monster do you take me for? You think I could be that callous? No better than the piece of filth who used you, nor the soulless fiend who sold you?
He ripped off the page and handed it over, but he began a second note even before Vallant had taken the first from his hand.
Is this bastard still alive? I assume not, that Rodger had him strangled? He had to pause, forcing his grip on the pencil to lighten before he went on. I want his name, if he isn't already dispatched. I'm not without resources or influence. And I'm very difficult to prosecute. ~ Heidi Cullinan

You're so…different when you work."
"Different bad?"
"Just different. You really are only seeing me as a blob of flesh."
Xander shook his head. "No. Okay - I'll grant I'm not looking at you the way I do when I'm admiring you. But I'm not looking at you the way I do my usual subjects, either. I'm highly aware of who I'm drawing right now. Of what I want this portrait to say, to whom I want it to speak."
Now Skylar softened. "You're drawing for me?"
"Everything I've drawn lately has been for you. ~ Heidi Cullinan

This was something he'd done a great deal of when he was very young, so young the memory was washed to sepia with age. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Sometimes the ones we love are like butterflies, flitting all over, and we have to sit and wait patiently for them to land. Sometimes they never do, and that's a risk we take. But sometimes what they need most is to see us sitting still, patient, waiting. To understand that we're going to be there no matter what, that we're the ones who are always sitting there waiting, loyal, loving. Sometimes that's more powerful than any words. ~ Heidi Cullinan

That's what art does. Speaks to deep parts of us, usually ones we can't access any other way." He gripped his sandwich tighter as he ground the sticky gears of his manners. "I'm…glad you were able to see yourself in mine." He ignored the part about the total stranger allegedly wanting to buy his art, assuming it was nothing more than a line.
Skylar smiled, not his ting but the gentler one that made something behind Xander's balls tingle. "Me too." The smile turned regretful as he rose. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Oh, no you fucking don't. You do not ignore me for five weeks, rub your toe in the dirt and say you need something from me, then bail when I bleed off some hurt. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Sit. I can't flirt standing up, and you're freakishly tall. ~ Heidi Cullinan

You're honestly going to let them all think you're gay?"
There was an odd steel about Skylar's expression. "Let them think what they want. I don't care."
Skylar looked serious, but Xander couldn't help pushing back. "You care a hell of a lot and you know it."
"I care more about you. About myself. I don't want to live like that anymore." His shoulders sagged. "Please, Xander. I don't want to fight. I want to be with you ~ Heidi Cullinan

There's no magic ruler by which we're all judged and weighed, not in this life. If you wait for someone to tell you it's time to grow up, you'll wait forever. Some people, quite happily, do just that. They don't do anything until they're forced to by circumstance ~ Heidi Cullinan

Every book is a revolution. Books are our ticket out of boredom, despair, loneliness - but also ignorance. ~ Heidi Cullinan

That would probably kill me, so I knew he was exaggerating, but it made me feel soft inside. Nervous too, but soft. It's hard to explain. It was kind of like hope, but with jagged edges. ~ Heidi Cullinan

When people matter to you, they deserve your time and attention. That's how you keep from screwing things up. ~ Heidi Cullinan

Nobody ever loved you like I do. ~ Steve thinking to himself about Chenco ~ Heidi Cullinan

It was a full Spears album, apparently, and each song was as ridiculous as the one before. They were catchy, yes, but so was the plague. ~ Heidi Cullinan

When you have an invisible disease, your sickness isn't your biggest problem. What you end up battling more than anything else, every single day, is other people. ~ Heidi Cullinan