The List

Havermouth, Seven Years Before

Rhett hung in the doorway and watched as Phillip Salem moved around the elegant and modern kitchen making toast and coffee. Rhett’s mother was making herself scarce, as was normal when Phillip was in Havermouth. She rented office space above Deborah’s florist, giving herself both the excuse to see her lover, and a retreat from Phillip.

Phillip looked up, sensing Rhett’s gaze. “Want a coffee?”

“I’ll make it,” Rhett edged into the kitchen warily. Things between him and his father tended to explode unexpectedly. There was a direct correlation between other things happening in Phillip’s life and his tolerance for his son.

“For f-k sake Rhett,” Phillip said with disdain as he dragged his eye over Rhett. “You look like you dressed in the dark in clothes that you found in the bottom of the laundry hamper. How the hell you manage to have the reputation that you do looking as you do, I don’t know.”

“It’s the school uniform,” Rhett hunched his shoulder as he poure