“Hi. You’re Emilia,” he said in a monotone, returning to his detailed brushwork.
I nodded. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Adam told me about you.”
I was surprised. He was so matter-of-fact about it. I wondered when Adam had mentioned me to his cousin and in what context.
“What’s your name?” I asked, stepping into the room. This looked like his bedroom, but he clearly did not live here. The place was immaculate and there was no bed in it.
“I’m William Drake, Peter Drake’s son,” he said formally.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I chirped. Adam had mentioned that he had a cousin on the autism spectrum. For part of my qualifications for medical school, I had volunteered to work with special needs teens and adults—most of whom had Asperger’s Syndrome or some other form of autism. I crept up to get a better look at his handiwork.
“May I ask what you are doing?”
“Painting figurines,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing ever. My eyes flew up to the shelves above his head, filled to overflowing with painted pewter figurines. They depicted all sorts of fantasy heroes—wizards, thieves, magicians, warriors, elves and dwarves.
“Wow, these are awesome,” I said, moving up to get a closer look. The figurines were not more than an inch tall, made of pewter and each painted in great detail, sometimes even with coats of arms on the shields and delicately rendered facial features, which must have required painstaking hours to depict. “You must have hundreds of these here.”
“We don’t use them anymore. Adam never plays D and D like he used to in high school.”
“Oh, these are for Dungeons and Dragons? I’ve never played.”
“We used to play all the time. A big group of us. Adam was the GM.” Huh. Adam had been the Game Master. Why didn’t it surprise me to find that out? The Game Master was the one who controlled the story and the game environment for the other players, moving their characters within that world. With his penchant for control, I was not surprised that Adam played that role in his group of friends.
“And you painted all the figurines?”
“I paint for my job, too. I work in the art department for Dragon Epoch.”
I took a seat across from him, following his delicate movement. He was painting a female sorceress with flowing purple robes covered in golden symbols. “So you must get to see Adam all the time, then, if you work with him.”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes but kept working, his head tilted down. “No, hardly ever. I barely see him at all anymore.”
I paused, reflecting on that. Especially since this was the first time in our entire conversation that William had shown an emotion—regret. I watched him as he quietly continued his work. He looked sad, lonely. He missed his cousin, who had likely been one of his closest friends—and yet they worked in the same building every day! What did that say about Adam? Why employ a cousin, someone who was once a good friend, and then never spend time with him?
It was true Adam’s work kept him immensely busy, but I was certain he could manage thirty minutes to sit with William over lunch once a week.
I decided to change the subject. “I play DE. Did you design anything I know?”
“I’m a colorist. I fill in the color on other peoples’ designs.”
“So did you work on any designs I’d know?”
“Probably,” he said and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Don’t tell her any game secrets, Liam. She’ll try to weasel anything she can out of you,” came a dry voice from the doorway and I turned to Adam, who stood watching us.
William didn’t even look up when his cousin spoke. He just shrugged. “I don’t know any.”
Adam came into the room and walked up behind his cousin to look at what he was doing. “Oh, I remember her. Didn’t you have her wearing yellow before?”
“Different figure,” William grunted.
“So Adam, I heard you used to be a GM for Dungeons and Dragons.”
He glanced at the shelf above William’s head. “Yeah, a long time ago. Liam likes to keep painting the figurines even though we haven’t played in almost a decade.”
“He does an awesome job. Maybe you guys should play again sometime.” Adam shot me a curious look but said nothing. I could interpret the expression though. It said something along the lines of: Like I have the time for that?
We were called to dinner and ate on the back patio around a gorgeous pool. Britt regaled me with more funny stories from Adam’s adolescence while he bore the usual brand of family humiliation stoically.