Tony POV
I put my hand up to signal our waitress and she brought us our bill. Braxton was acting really strange, and seemed scared. Confused, I put my credit card in the machine, threw some cash on the table as a tip and we were ready to go. The second the receipt started printing, Braxton was on her feet, turned on her heels and started to walk out, very quickly. Fumbling to get my card into my wallet, I stood up and raced to catch up with her. I didn't speak until we got outside.
"You okay, Brae? What's going on?" I asked, as we power walked down the street.
She didn't even turn her head to answer me. "I'll explain in a minute, we gotta go. We can't be here."
We walked down a few more blocks until we reached the beach. It was Friday, and it was busy. I knew Braxton hates crowds, but I had a feeling there was a reason we were at a very, very public place. We finally stopped walking once we got to where the pavement met the sand. "What's going on?"
She caught her breath before she spoke. "There was-- I saw--" she stuttered. I shot her a look trying to nonverbally tell her breathe, just breathe. She inhaled before continuing. "One of Mason's friends was there, at the restaurant. He was staring at me, the whole time we were there. Once I finally looked over to him, he pulled out his phone and called someone." She looked down at her feet, and started tapping her fingers against her thigh. I could tell she was counting to five, something I told her to do when she felt a panic attack coming on. "I'm scared, Tony." Her fingers started going faster and faster.
"You're not going home tonight, you're staying with me," I said, pulling her into a hug and rubbing small circles on her back to calm her down. "I'll keep you safe. I promise."
She hugged me back and we stayed like that for a minute. "But your place is so close to where we were..." she whispered into my chest.
I pulled back. "I've got somewhere else we can go. We can come back to your place and get you some stuff tomorrow, but you are not going back to that apartment. You can stay with me."
She looked up at me, wide eyed. "I can't let you do that, I gotta learn to take care of myself--"
"No," I stopped her. "I have 6 years to make up for."
She gave me a soft smile. "Okay."
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number, waiting for an answer.
On the third ring I heard a voice on the other end of the line. "Hey man, what's up?" Vic asked me, in his cheery little voice.
"Are you at the house right now?" I questioned.
"Yeah, why? Everything okay?" He sounded worried and confused.
"Braxton and I are coming over, we're spending the night. See you soon," I replied, hanging up before he could ask more questions.
Braxton POV
Tony hung up the phone with whoever he was speaking to. He didn't say a name and I couldn't hear the other line, as I was too busy scanning the beach for Jim, whose name I finally remembered. He had come over a few nights while Mason and I were together, at the very beginning of our relationship.
About 50 feet down the beach, through the sea of people, I swear I saw that leather jacket. I can't be sure if it was him, though. There had to have been hundreds of people there, and it had started to get dark. I kept tapping my fingers on my thigh to try and keep calm. One, two, three, four, five. Repeat. One, two, three, four ,five, repeat.
