Summary: One number carved into an Old Navy bathroom stall. One miserable, MusicFilled Educational Summer at band camp. Two teenage boys to string it all together. Mix and allow mayhem to ensue.

Warning: Language. Phone numbers. Band camp. Eventual man-on-man goodness.

Caution: Don't try this at home.

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Chapter 1: A Number Once Dialed

I stared at my cell phone and leaned against the wall. Slowly, I felt my heart settle back into my chest.

I’d almost called. And probably would have gone through with it if the ringing on the other end hadn’t slapped me out of my depressed mania with a heart attack. Jesus, was I out of my mind?

Sure I was going to be attending the camp from hell. Sure I’d just lost my girlfriend (it hadn’t worked out after all), and sure I'd been slowly going mad since school ended. But that was no reason to go around attempting suicide.

Well, it wasn’t really suicide exactly. That was overreacting. It was more like potential suicide. That had been roughly the idea when I’d seen the number on the bathroom stall at Old Navy. Out. Of. My. Fucking. Mind.

Okay, the internal thought processing hadn’t been the clearest, I admit. It had gone somewhere along the lines of, Well, it could be a serial killer/stalker that might put me out of my misery, but at the very least it would be someone to talk to. Someone who might just listen for one second.

And then the ringing. The click as whoever the hell’s number it was picked up the phone. My common sense had come rushing back in a painful wave that left me tense and short of breath. My thumb had moved from relaxed to canceling the call in 2.4 seconds.

I licked my lips and carefully placed the phone back in my pocket. I’d learned my lesson, yadda yadda yadda. Time to get back to reality and humanity and all those other unreasonable –ity’s.

I hadn’t taken three steps when it rang.

My first thought was, This could be a problem. Then, a thousand reasons flashed through my mind that would explain why it wouldn’t be the whoever from the bathroom stall. It was probably just my mom calling to check and see if I was alright— more realistically, to make sure her son hadn't fled the country. That’s what parents do when they're away on vacation (and their child is expected at band camp when they get back). They call home. All the time. Parents are famous for it, in fact.

It was probably nothing. Probably.

Every time I got close to the phone my hand retracted into my mouth, where the nails were bitten nervously. What were the chances that the other person had caller ID? Damn!

Hand completely out of my control, I reached for the phone and put it to my ear.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi,” said a lovely female voice on the other end. Definitely not Mom. “Um, who is this?”

“Who is this?” Not Mom, but not exactly the voice I would expect of a men’s restroom vandalizer, either.

“Oh.” She sounded embarrassed. “I was just wondering if you— Daniel, get off!— if you just called my number?”

“Uh…” A sheen of sweat was forming on my palms. It was getting hard to grip the phone. “Um, yeah, I might have,” I said cautiously. There was a sound like static on the other end. “Wrong number, I guess. Sorry about that.”

“Sure it was.” The person scoffed. It was not, however, the same voice. This one was male. “And you're a really bad liar, did you know that? I can tell and I’m not even looking at you.”

I blinked. The bottom fell out of my stomach. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s exactly what it felt like.

“O-kay,” I said. “Um.” The female voice was snarling in a muffled, unhappy way somewhere in the background:

“For crying out loud Daniel! Give it back! It was a mistake! Jeez, why do you have to be such a—”

I never got to find out what Daniel was (unfortunately, because it was promising to be something colorful and with lots of equally colorful adjectives). The person cleared their throat. “That’s my sister Joanne,” he confided in me. “Just ignore her. She can be a little emotional.”

“Ah.” Would they call again if I hung up? The girl Joanne probably wouldn’t, but the other one (Daniel by name, if the frustrated screams were anything to go by) I wasn’t too sure about. He sounded dangerous in a sly sort of way.

“So,” said Daniel silkily, “you got the number off the stall, right?”

I felt my face flush. “Excuse me?"

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“And why would you do that?"

"Well, because you obviously know what stall I'm talking about, so..."

I slammed my hand down on the counter. "How the hell do you get me knowing what you're talking about from excuse me?”

I was ignored. “Wasn't that at an Old Navy?”

“At the mall, yeah, right across from the food court you bastard!”

I didn’t really say that. Desperately wanted to, because there was something about the guy that I found instantly irritating, but I bit down on my lip. When I didn’t say anything at all, he laughed.

“Did you buy anything?”

“No,” I growled. “I haven’t bought anything at Old Navy since elementary school.”

“Just there to use the bathroom?”

I sighed. Please let me sound like I’m not about to throw up. “No.”

He sounded confused. “So you just skim through public restrooms picking up numbers?”

“No!” Now I knew why his sister had been screaming. If I’d been related to him, he would’ve died young. “I dialed the wrong number and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Yeah?” Daniel said pleasantly. “Sure, why not? It’s just that when people really do dial a wrong number, they usually just hang up when I tell them where this number’s been. What’s your name, by the way?”

I shook my head, trying to figure it out. “What?” This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t the way normal people acted in real life.

“I said,” said Daniel slowly, “wha--”

I hung up.

I was a little paranoid around my cell for the rest of the day. And the day after that. But on the third day, after still no call back from Bathroom Number, I fell into the frame of mind that it would just be some little thing to laugh at when I looked back on it. For whatever reason, I was kind of over my depression. Having the shit scared out of you and having someone to yell at will help breeze by that sort of thing. When the phone rang on the third day, I answered it in a semi-happy mood without even a chance to put up my defenses.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mister Hang Up,” said a cheerful voice. “And here I was afraid I had written down your number wrong.”

I sat up from the couch and turned off the TV. “Um, who is this?”

“This is your friend on the other end of the bathroom number.” Daniel yawned casually. “And I didn’t quite catch your name the last time we chatted. I think the line got disconnected or something.”

“Disconnected as in I hit the off button."

“Oh,” he said, and then there was a pause. “Hey, what was your name agai—?”

I pulled the phone away and hung up. I stared at it until it rang again. I put it to my ear and said nothing.

Daniel was laughing. “Okay, look, if you’re going to keep doing that—”

I hung up again. It hadn’t rung once before it was up to my ear again.

“Do you know what the word tenacious means?” I said.

“I love that word,” said Daniel. “Not. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’ve kinda got your number. Literally.”

“Are you threatening me, stalker?”

“No, of course not. And I’m not a stalker. But it is a convenient way of exchanging phone numbers, dontcha think?”

“How did you get my number?”

“Well, duh— waitwaitpleasedonthangup. It’s a pain having to keep hitting redial.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo. Well?” I switched the cell to my other ear and used the free hand to flip through a magazine on the couch. I noticed my fingers weren’t so twitchy as they had been after the first call.

“Well... I guess I asked for that,” said Daniel. “But you’re the one that called me, remember?”

“I didn’t call you,” I said. “It was a wrong number, and now you’re stalking me. Fag,” I added for good measure.

“Oh, like you’re not enjoying it? Ha-fucking-ha.”

The obvious mock made my lip curl. “What do you mean?”

“You would’ve called the police if you were really worried.”

“How the hell do you know I haven’t?”

“Have you?”

I hadn’t been expecting that, and it took a minute too long to think of a comeback. I fell over on the couch and buried my face in a pillow. After a few seconds I turned my face back to the side and put the phone back to my ear.

“Still there?” said Daniel.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“Will you tell me your name now?”

“What do you think?”

“I’ll tell you mine.”

I didn’t bother to mention that I already knew it. “If I hang up will you leave me alone?”

“It’s Daniel,” he offered.

“In that case, leave me alone Daniel.”

“Will you tell me yours now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Besides the fact that you’re stalking me? I don’t know you, I don't want to know you, and I want you to stop calling me. Please.”

“You know more about me than I know about you,” he said sensibly. “Look, if I was stalking you, would you know? I mean, really know?”

“I don’t know. I guess. I don’t know! What kind of question is that?” I sat back on my heels and sank into the couch. “You’re just trying to confuse me.”

“Trust me. You’d know. I’d be, what, sending you weird emails and breathing really heavy on the phone without actually talking, right? And you definitely wouldn’t know my name, because I wouldn’t have told you, and I wouldn’t be asking for yours. I’d just tap your calls and wait for your boyfriend to call you or something—”

“Hey!” I jumped off the couch.

“What?” He sounded so innocent.

“What do you mean what?”

“I meant what,” he said. “And I ask again: what?”

I gave a dry laugh. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I explained sarcastically.

“How come?”

There was a pause. “Uh. Oh, I don’t know. How about…” I made a swift hand gesture. As if he were there in person and I was talking to him. "Because I'm not gay?"

Daniel snorted. “O-kay. But anyway, I’m not doing any of those things to you. Thus, I am not a stalker. Happy?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not. Your logic sucks. Hang up the phone right now, and burn whatever you wrote my number down on. Leave me alone or I’ll call the police.”

He sighed. “Fine, you win. Talk to you later.”

And he hung up. He hung up on me.

And I would have been happy if it hadn’t been for that last ‘talk to you later’ part. I sat on the couch and stared at a blank TV for most of the rest of the day. Oh, well. I’d be off to the most horribly jolly place on earth tomorrow. Music Academy, i.e. band camp. It would probably be best if I left my cell at home, but I’d probably end up bringing it anyway. Still, somehow I felt like I’d be getting away from the sudden mess I’d gotten myself into. Getting away from the house would be a perfect way to get away from this stupid phone stalker.