‘I have never in my life worn a Birkenstock,’ she gasped, glancing down at her Guccis to make sure they hadn’t heard. ‘And I’d rather go to prison than Ikea.’

‘Ikea has better food,’ I argued.

‘Just barely,’ she sniffed. ‘Those meatballs are gross, they’re fake news.’

‘Blasphemy,’ I whispered under my breath.

‘We are here,’ Sumi announced, stopping in front of the nondescript door of an ordinary building. ‘After you.’

‘Is it an escape room?’ I asked, my pulse suddenly racing. ‘Because I should warn you, I’m not allowed in those.’

‘No it isn’t, and what do you mean you’re not allowed?’

‘We went to one as a team-building exercise in DC,’ I explained as she gently pushed me through the door. ‘And I got slightly over-competitive and made one of the other girls cry.’

She gave me a look.

‘You couldn’t make me cry if you tried,’ she said, as much of a threat as a promise.

‘Where are we?’ I asked again, the distant sound of music thrumming through the floorboards.

‘It’s a dark disco,’ she replied, handing two tickets to a man who appeared to be watching a beauty tutorial on his iPhone. He swapped her the tickets for two bottles of water and cocked his head towards a narrow death trap of a staircase behind him. ‘We’re going to dance.’

‘Like, a goth disco?’ I looked back at the staircase and wondered if it truly was steep enough to finish me off. Because if it was a choice between that and an entire evening of swishing around to The Cure, I couldn’t honestly say which was the better option.

‘No, you knob. A dark disco, a disco that takes place in the dark.’ Sumi grinned as we heaved our way upstairs. ‘It’s the best thing ever, they play the most amazing music and you can dance however you want because it’s pitch black, no one can see you. You’re literally dancing as though nobody is watching.’

I clutched my water bottle to my chest.

‘Is this a sex thing?’

‘You’re thinking of a dark room,’ she replied. ‘And no. At least, it wasn’t last time I came. It’s incredibly freeing. You can dance your arse off to Taylor Swift without worrying what anyone else thinks. Last time I was here they did a full hour of Spice Girls songs and, I swear, I thought someone had slipped some Molly into my drink I was so happy.’

‘And you’re sure they hadn’t?’ I asked before carefully inspecting the tamper-proof seal on my own water bottle.

‘Unlikely, it’s a sober party.’

It took a minute for the words to register.

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s a sober party,’ Sumi repeated. ‘No booze, no drugs.’

I almost fainted clean away.

‘Is there at least fizzy pop and Haribo?’