The sincerity in his tone was awe-inspiring and just plain inspiring to make me say something neither of us had spoken yet. “I love you too, Tobin.”
A smile a mile wide stretched across his handsome mug. “I’m sure I loved you first.”
“Not possible. I carried you with me over the years.”
“I carried you with me in my heart over the years and dreamed about you sometimes with my eyes open,” he argued back good-naturedly. “How can you top that?”
I sat up straight on that. “Really? You never told me that.”
“I just did,” he fired back, laughing.
Andre flopped down at the table, grabbing up a cold wing from his plate. “Where’s Malaysia?” Great. When we wanted to be alone, he showed up.
“She’s on the dance floor,” I informed him, settling back into Tobin’s arm as the large man from the corner raced by.
Andre perused the crowd behind me. “Ah, no, she’s not anywhere on the dance floor.”
Intuition starting to act up, I looked back at the dance floor for myself. “Well, maybe she went to the ladies’ room. I should go see if she’s straight. Be back in a minute.”
Sliding out the booth, I had to force my way through the first line of patrons dancing elbow to elbow. A muscular arm reached past me on each side and parted the rest. Tobin and Andre had come to the rescue. We pushed the swing door for the brightly-lit hallway with access to the kitchen, the back way to an alley, and restrooms further down the long hall. The music was muted, but the chatter was loud enough to compete with the thumping music in the main dining room. I searched the long line at the ladies’ restroom for Malaysia. No such luck. I asked the ladies had they seen a tall woman in an off the shoulder, short white dress with sheer sleeves.
One woman at the top of the line pointed at the back way to the alley at the other end of the hallway. “I saw her tussling with a big, black guy pulling her out that door. I thought he was her boyfriend and figured whatever they had going on was none of my business.”
Someone had taken her.