Ready to Run

Part Eight, Chapter 41

Lexi spent some time on her own in London, beginning the process of settling in after four months away. She checked in with Fyn, always the most grounded of the band, and learned that Jack was diligent and engaged at work but partying otherwise. It gave her hope that he still hadn't let the boys and Nigel down.

Phillip said the same and went so far as to suggest that his drug use was an escape from an empty private life, from life without her. She agreed that was possible, however she stood by the decision to sever ties with him until he was clean. It was too painful for her and confusing for Teddy to see him in his current condition.

*****

Lexi spent two days in Devon before taking Teddy home. Dan had just turned sixteen, was taller than Mary now, and threatening to reach his brother's height very soon. Evidently, he was quite the ladies' man, with his velvet brown eyes and artfully shaggy hair.

It didn't hurt that not only was his brother Jack Ripley, but that he could also sing and play guitar. His own group, Bottoms Up, had recently won a regional battle of the bands. He still made lots of time for his nephew and was teaching him to play football in the garden when Lexi arrived.

She was crushed to hear that Jack hadn't visited while Teddy was there, and Mary admitted that she hadn't seen him in three months. The women spent hours talking about the situation.

Mary supported Lexi's decision to refuse him access to Teddy, and to herself, until he was demonstrably clean. By the time Rory arrived to take her and Teddy back to London, she and Mary had moved on to happier topics like Lexi's upcoming album and Teddy's half-American, half-English accent.

*****

It took Lexi a week to manage a video call with Jack when he wasn't visibly high. Phillip helped by convincing him to call her at the end of rehearsal, when Jack was always at his best and the boys would be there to support him when it was over. Everyone knew that he would need it.

"Hi Lexi," his voice was wary, "it's good to see you, Sweetheart."

"It's good to see you when you're yourself, Jack." His eyebrows knit, but she stopped him before he began a defensive retort. "No, please let me speak." He sat back and waited.

"We can't see you anymore, Jack. Not me, not Teddy. I don't know if you remember the last time you called, but it was awful. You were manic, talking non-stop, and you looked... well Teddy hardly recognized you and it frightened him. You nearly flashed me. You asked me to show you my tits. I don't know what you're on, but it makes you ugly and it breaks my heart.

"Jack, I haven't taken off your grandmother's ring since you put it on my finger, and it still means the same thing to me now that it did four years ago. I made you a promise, Jack and I intend to keep it. If we're together on your twenty fifth birthday, and you still love me like you did that night in the garden, and you ask me again, I'll say yes.

"But we're not going to be together until you're clean. Until you're ready to be the man that I fell in love with. I love you and always will, but I'm not in love with you. I need to do this for Teddy and for myself because we're worthy of more than you can give right now.

"Phillip and the boys and your mom will let me know how you're doing, what you're doing, and when you're ready they'll tell me. Until then please don't call or text or come to the house. I'll block you if I have to, Jack, and Rory will ask you to leave. Maybe being on tour will help you sort things out. The boys are there for you, so is Phillip.

"Please, Jack, if not for me then for our son." Her voice cracked, "I love you so much..." She began to cry, and before he could speak she ended the call.

*****

Khadi, who had been waiting in the kitchen, came in the living room to sit beside Lexi, cradling her friend's head in her lap and stoking her hair as months and months of anguish ran from her eyes.

It was nearly an hour before her tears ebbed; by then there were over twenty texts and six voicemails from Jack. She deleted and erased them all without reading or listening to them.

She had to block him across the board by the next day. Rory escorted him from the house twice before the band left on tour. The boys told her that he was irate at first, then distraught, and then high for nearly seventy-two hours.

They knew about four women; there might have been more. They were all petite and blonde, and one told Lukas that Jack had called her by another name and could only perform if he took her from behind; he didn't want to see her face.

Emma, who now managed Lexi from her own office rather than from the singer's side, called after Jack's three day bender with seemingly positive information. Two days before the tour began, Phillip and the rest of the band had staged an intervention of sorts, making sure that someone was with Jack at all times, and reminding him again and again that he had a job to do.

He was in rough shape, but clean, as they played their first show in London. Lexi attended, blending into the crowd in a ball cap and nondescript clothes. The band had recorded a heartbreaking song, written by Jack, called Smile Through the Rain, for their third album. The public thought it was for CC, or Louise. Lexi knew better. Her heart ached as Jack quietly dedicated it to 'the cub's mum' that night. She didn't go backstage.