Call It What You Want To - Style

03. Prove It

"Be gayer?" Kyle says as he lifts himself into the passenger seat of Stan's truck. "What the hell does that even mean?" He throws his backpack onto the floorboard.

Stan huffs, twisting the key. "Don't ask me." The truck's old engine sputters loudly and he grips the wheel. "Can you plug my phone in?" he asks, gesturing to where it was resting in the cupholder.

Kyle grabs the aux cord and plugs it into Stan's phone. The radio clicks, before it start to play the last song Stan had listened to.

"Limp Bizkit?" Kyle asks, laughing. "Really?"

"Shut up," Stan says with no bite. He turns the radio's knob down before Fred Durst starts screaming through his already almost blown out speakers. The truck pulls out of the school parking lot.

"Where are we going?" Kyle says. When he reaches down to adjust the seat, it flies back and he lets out a small squeak of surprise. He leans against it and slowly moves it back up so he's angled. Reclined, he kicks his feet up on the dashboard, crinkling a piece of algebra homework Stan had left there. Stan can see dirt particles fall off the outsole of his Converse and sprinkle across the dashboard.

"I don't know," Stan says, exasperated, hitting Kyle's shoulder with the back of his right hand. "Get your dirty ass feet off my truck." He comes to a stop at a red light and grabs his phone to switch the playlist from whatever mix of pop punk and nu metal is playing now to something a little less likely to completely destroy his speakers.

"It's already dirty; no one will notice," Kyle says, even though he's already moving his feet back down to the floor. He sighs as the light turns green and Stan takes a left. "Let's just go to my house, since you live in the middle of nowhere now."

"Okay, good, 'cause I was already going there."

Stan pulls into the avenue on which Kyle lives, pulls in front of the Broflovski's garage and switches the ignition off. They both hop out. Kyle drags his backpack off the floor and throws it over his shoulder, holding the strap with one hand.

When Kyle opens the front door, Kyle says, "I'm home, Ma!" and they head upstairs without a second word. They get to Kyle's room and the two sit on the bed, Stan immediately pulling out his phone.

He then remembers why they're here in the first place. "Oh, Kenny said something about going on dates, maybe," he says, setting the phone on the nightstand.

"I guess," Kyle says, pulling a notebook and a folder out of his bag.

"You guess?"

"Well, I've never been in a relationship." On the notebook, he lays down their homework from algebra. "You're the expert," he says.

Bypassing the chance to make fun of Kyle for being a nerd, doing his homework as soon as possible, Stan says, "I'm not an expert."

"Well, what did you and Wendy do?"

Oh. Forgot about her, Stan thinks. "I don't know." He doesn't even remember how old they were whenever they started dating. They were dumb and in elementary and somehow it lasted to high school. In all honesty, Stan thinks she just liked the attention. He doesn't care, though. It's over, now.

"What did you guys usually do?" Kyle asks. "Like, for fun?"

Stan shrugs and lies down, hands interlocked behind his head. He feels like Ferris Bueller, but much lamer. He thinks. "We just kinda, like," he says, "hung out and kissed and stuff. I guess." He's never really thought about his relationship with Wendy. It was just always there.

He doesn't realize that a silence has fallen in the room until Kyle breaks it. "Kissed?" he asks hesitantly.

"I mean, yeah, it," Stan starts, but when he looks up, Kyle is just staring at him. He's not writing or doing his work anymore, he's just looking at Stan, blank-faced. "Oh, shit. " Stan springs back up. "You haven't had your first kiss yet!"