<div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/eDJMl.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Allison Saurer<br/><strong>Title:</strong>Mechanic / The Final Touch<br/><strong>Locations:</strong>Inside the loft, heading towards the garage<br/><strong>Tags:</strong>Adriano, Taras<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Allison bowed her head slightly and brought her right hand up to her face, covering half of it and incidentally giving Adriano a good look at her festive nail varnish. Her thumb was painted blue with a few tiny white star decals sprinkled on top while the rest of her fingers alternated between red and blue. She looked down briefly before raising her one exposed eye back up towards the handsome Italian and showing him half of a bashful smile. Receiving compliments was always a somewhat awkward affair for Allison, even though she truly appreciated them from the bottom of her heart. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with the fact that she'd received so few of them from her peers during her childhood and that she'd been so excessively self-conscious for a long time as a result.<br/><br/>Even now, she had a bit of trouble accepting Adriano's flattery without questioning herself about whether or not she was worthy of his praise, but this time she was able to combat the doubts away and just enjoy the moment for what it was. And it<em>was</em>certainly a nice moment, as Adriano's sweet words flowed through Allison's veins like molten gold, making her melt and feel warm and special all at the same time. "I don't think that many girls my age would to," she punctuated her reply with a short giggle.<br/><br/>Already, Allison was beginning to feel more at ease just from the short chat, but Adriano's next inquiry rocked her boat considerably and threatened to undo any progress that had been made. Whenever possible, she did her best to avoid situations in which she'd need to discuss her personal life since she hadn't exactly been entirely honest with the crew in that regard and lying to them made her feel sick to her stomach; the relatively recent deaths of her parents had made things even more delicate, the pain from that having hardly dulled since the moment that she'd found out.<br/><br/>This time it was particularly bad, though, because Allison felt as if Adriano might be able to just see right through her soul and realize that she wasn't being truthful. After all, it was his job to deal with mobsters and all sorts of other shady characters who were surely far better liars than her, so what chance did she have of fooling him? She could only hope that he wouldn't be scrutinizing her too closely since they were friends; family, even.<br/><br/>"Oh, um, yeah of course." Allison bought herself a few seconds to regroup her thoughts and calm herself down by agreeing to help with the fireworks, not that she would have refused even if she wouldn't have been benefiting from the distraction. She could scarcely ever refuse a favor to anyone, even a random stranger, so hell would likely freeze over before she turned away a fellow crew member.<br/><br/>"Well, I won't lie,"<em>that was a lie right there</em>. Well, kind of; she tried to keep things vague so that she didn't really need to lie, only to omit certain facts. It probably wasn't much better, but for whatever reason it made it a bit easier for her. "I've had some ups and downs, but at least I think I've grown. I don't regret going off to do my own thing and see a bit more of the world, but I'm really happy to have ended up back here with everyone. I guess in a way it made me appreciate everything that I had that much more, you know?"<em>Especially the lives of the people that I love</em>, Allison thought to herself gloomily.<br/><br/>Suddenly remembering Taras, she hazarded a quick glance at him over her shoulder just before reaching the entrance to the kitchen behind Adriano as she followed him. She had no idea what her 'older brother' was thinking, or if he'd even realized that she'd gotten upset with him earlier. If he had, then he hadn't shown it, anyways. Oddly enough, she wished that he would have. Now that she'd had some time to simmer down, Allison was pretty sure that she'd overreacted and she wished that he would have gotten annoyed with her; perhaps angry, even. At least then she'd know that he was capable of seeing himself as something more than just her stalwart protector.<br/><br/>Then she remembered how Taras hadn't even noticed her despite the fact that she'd tried to dress up as cutely and enticingly for him as she could and her hope waned like the dying petals of a flower. It filled Allison with a whirlwind of confusion emotions which she wasn't prepared to deal with at the moment, so she pushed them out of her mind for the time being and turned to face the front again as she followed Adriano down to the garage.<br/><br/>"It's funny, when I think about you, I don't really think<em>loud, bright fireworks</em>," Allison said offhandedly before realizing her less than ideal choice of words.<em>Did you just tell him that you think about him? You dork!</em>Alison cringed at herself and nervously tucked any loose strands of hair that she could find on the right side of her head behind her ear, concluding that it was probably a better idea to shut up rather than clumsily try to explain herself and potentially stick her foot even further into her mouth.