No Strings Attached: Friends with Benefits on a College Campus

Sample

At eleven o’clock on a Friday night in September, a popular college bar called Josie’s Grill has a line out the door and snaking down the block. Inside, men in polo shirts and women in stilettos crush against the bar, vying for the bartenders’ attention. Whitney, a first-year college student, who got into the bar using her older sister’s ID, wraps her small hands around six shot glasses full of a pink liquid and squeezes through the mob back to her table. She sets the shots on the high-top table to cheers and feigned groans from her friends. Her roommate Lindsay, who also entered the bar using a fake ID, holds her shot glass up in the air and turns a clumsy pirouette, shouting “Woo-hoo!” The gang downs the drinks in unison. Lindsay stumbles and yelps in pain as a guy at the next table steps back onto her foot. “Ow! Look out!” The young man reaches toward Lindsay, spilling half his beer trying to catch her. “I’m so sorry!” He shouts over the roar of the crowd. “No worries!” Lindsay shouts back over the music. “Here, let me buy you another beer!” “Okay, thanks! What’s your name?” “Lindsay.” “Nice to meet you Liz.” “No, Lindsay!” “Sorry! LINDSAY.” He bends his face close to her ear: “I’M JEROD.”