The Scenic Route

Chapter 10

They get a double room on the seventeenth floor, and their request for a rollaway bed is shot down. There's a convention in town, all the rollaway beds spoken for. Kenny and Butters claim one of the beds by dropping into it and snuggling up together to watch TV, and Cartman asks Kyle and Stan to pick a number.

"Whoever guesses closest to my number will get to share the other bed with me," he says. Stan snorts.

"Yeah, that's fair. How come you're automatically in the bed? Let's flip a coin."

"It's fine," Kyle says, already heading for the bathroom with a clean pair of clothes tucked under his arm. "I'll sleep on the floor, I don't care."

"Kyle -"

"I said it's fine, Stan, just fucking leave it."

He closes the bathroom door hard, aware that he's being an idiot. He won't be able to explain the change in his mood, and everyone out there probably knows Stan's phone call with Wendy is to blame, anyway. He's sweating as he undresses, thinking about this. Will they talk about him? What the hell's wrong with Kyle, why is he such a bitch, what does he expect from you, Stan?Kyle's teeth are gritted by the time he climbs under the hot water, and he can't really enjoy it the way he'd hoped to. He scrubs his skin until it's raw and claws his fingernails into the soap to clean the dirt from beneath them, his nail beds stinging. He wanted to linger under the water, to think about Stan - how he'll come in here when Kyle is done and rub his soapy hands all over himself, stroke his cock, make soft noises that the blast of the shower will hide - but now it's just too pathetic. Stan will be thinking about Wendy, not even needing to stretch his fantasies very far, because he knows what it's like to have her skin pressed against his, her lips on his neck, his hand between her legs. Kyle slaps the shower off, dizzy with anger that he knows he hasn't earned. Stan never promised him anything.

"I'm gonna go get the sleeping bag from the car," he says as he walks out of the bathroom, dressed, steam puffing out behind him. He steps into his shoes, not making eye contact with any of them. Stan is staring at him in that fucking cloying goddamn way that he does when he pretends not to know why Kyle is acting like a dick, Cartman is hurrying to claim the bathroom and Butters and Kenny are ignoring the TV in favor of whispering together, their heads on the same pillow. Only when Kyle has left the room does he realize that he doesn't have a key for the room. He heads for the elevators anyway, more interested in getting away from all of them than how he'll get back in.

He wanders the lobby before heading toward the valet stand. The hotel is big, technically a resort, about twenty minutes from the airport. Convention attendees are crowded around the lobby bar, dressed in business casual douche-wear and laughing over drinks. Kyle walks to the back of the lobby and peeks out at the pool, trying to feel less hateful. Wendy did a good thing for Butters, and in a lot of ways, Kyle loves her, too. She's always been understanding about his friendship with Stan, allowing them time alone together. He thinks of the look she gave him during her graduation address. Maybe she's a little too fucking understanding. Condescending, even. Pitying. Kyle feels like kicking something, his anger ratcheting back up like a thermometer that's ready to burst, swelling between his ears. Once he gets like this, there's nothing to do but sleep it off. Last year, when Kyle punched a hole in his bedroom door over a smart ass comment his brother made to him at the dinner table, his parents made him go to anger management counseling. He was able to bluff his way through two sessions with a therapist and convince everyone involved that he doesn't really have a problem. It's his fucking business if he wants to get angry and grind his teeth away at night. Nobody's going to be able to talk him out of feeling this way.

He retrieves the sleeping bag and returns to the room, his mood even worse than it was when he left. It doesn't help that Stan is freshly showered and treating Kyle the way he always does when Kyle starts to seethe, like he's a grenade that must be handled with care. Kyle unrolls the sleeping bag near the window and swipes one of the pillows from the bed.