They’d come up with a name for these nights, used first in jest but eventually in earnest, like all the worst nicknames. They called it the Night of Indulgences. Ben marked the day on his calendar and knew that Freddy kept a countdown and could say, at any point in the year, how many days until the next Night.

Each year, the boys made a point to push their extravagance a little further—an older whiskey, a rarer cigar. This year, Ben was determined to have the best Night of Indulgences yet, as he knew it would likely be his last. A law student was expected to have a sense of propriety. Plus, he would be on the other side of the country—an expensive flight, a commitment of time. He didn’t mind giving up this tradition in exchange for the rich life that awaited him—a life that had the potential to be even greater than Freddy’s.

“How’d you afford it?” Freddy was asking, of the coat.

“It was a gift,” Ben said. “From my father.” This was a half-truth. While his father had given him a modest sum of money with which to do whatever he pleased—fun money, he called it—it was assumed to be what Ben would live off of for the first few months of school. Rent was not cheap out east, and Ben hadn’t saved much at his part-time job at the Wichita Eagle. He was taking out a massive student loan to cover the cost of tuition.

“I really got it for the lining,” Ben said, and opened the coat so Freddy could admire the sensitive interior.

“I’ve never understood the point of a nice lining. What’s the fuss if nobody can see it?”

“I take it you’re also against lingerie?”

“Who says I don’t get to see lingerie? Remember that one?” Freddy gestured toward the barista. “Wore a little red thing. Like a shoelace.”

The boys laughed, all the while trying to catch the angry eye of the barista, who had, at some point, pocketed the twenty-dollar butterfly.

Their next stop was dinner, where they ordered bloody steaks, monkfish liver pate, and a bottle of honey-colored bourbon aged for longer than either of them had been alive, all served by a waiter with an unidentifiable accent. Ben thought the restaurant must have hired the man because of this accent; to people in Wichita, there was nothing more sophisticated than something, or someone, from a foreign country—the right foreign country.