There can be no other readings which give Riley's story a brighter spin unless it is by totally overlooking the utter, utter, wrongness of the relationship between Riley and Buffy. I've never known if Joss was simply oblivious to the total impropriety of a TA shagging a girl whose papers he grades or if it was a subtle way of indicating that Riley was a villain without any grasp of morality. Recent developments in S8 imply that in fact it was the 'He's a villain!' scenario, just a little too subtle for most viewers.