The music was so loud in the club that I could feel the thrum of it moving through my whole body. Betty, Lily, Cora and Molly were dancing in perfect time to each other, and I wondered whether this was a night-out ritual that they’d patched together – whether it would somehow summon a man, or repel them all, depending on the mood the girls were in. Meanwhile, Faith was two strides away at the end of the bar talking to a woman who she seemed to know already. It wasn’t like this was my first night out in years. I’d been out with the girls more times than I could remember. In this very club, I thought, taking another glance around the room. But somehow – minus the engagement ring that Lily had confiscated when we were on our way out the door – the entire experience felt different, and I couldn’t find a way to enjoy it. For the third or fourth time – or fifth – I pulled my phone out to check whether there was a message from Rowan. Nothing. I clicked into WhatsApp and saw that he was online, though, and I wondered who he was even talking to at this time of night and if—

‘Babes!’ Lily shouted over the bassline. ‘Dance with me.’ She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she snatched my phone away and stashed it in her back pocket before taking each of my hands in each of hers and guiding me to the dance floor with her.

‘Lily …’

‘Edi, you’re beautiful and bright and brilliant. I will not let you stand there and feel bad about yourself.’ She started to move me in gentle time to the music. ‘Feel your way through it, Edi, because you deserve to be here and you deserve to be enjoying this.’

‘What are you, a motivational speaker?’ Betty shouted, bumping her hips against Lily’s. As Lily bumped back, Demi Lovato’s ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ burst through the speakers, and I doubled over with laugher.

‘Now, if that isn’t a fucking sign,’ Lily shouted.

‘All right, folks,’ the drag-queen maestro came through the speakers. ‘We’ve got a special request tonight for Edi. Edi, baby girl, don’t you feel sorry in the slightest. You do you, honey.’

Betty wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gaze me a squeeze. ‘From me to you, babe.’ She moved away from me, then, an arm’s distance away, and she offered her hand out. ‘Edith Parcell, may I have this dance?’