“What has she told you?” Gemma asked, carefully avoiding answering directly.

“When I tell her I love her, she usually just laughs,” Sawyer said. “She doesn’t really say how she feels about me. She just yells at me a lot and tells me I’m an idiot.”

“No, Penn doesn’t love you,” Gemma told him. “She’s just using you. I don’t know if she even likes you.”

She turned toward him to watch his reaction. His blue eyes stayed locked on the view of the ocean, and he looked hurt but not surprised.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” When he spoke again, he sounded disappointed, but more with himself than with Penn’s lack of affection.

“She put a spell on you,” Gemma said, trying to ease his sadness. “She’s a siren, and she’s used her songs to trick you into thinking you feel a certain way about her. But you don’t.”

“No,” Sawyer said quickly. “No, that’s not true. I really love her. It’s not some spell.”

“Well, you can think what you want, but it is a spell.” She turned back to the water.

“You really think Penn’s a siren?” Sawyer asked.

“Yep.”

“Lexi and Thea, too?”

“Yep.”

He thought about it, then asked, “What’s a siren?”

“A siren is sorta like a mermaid, but they can enchant people with their voices, usually men,” Gemma said.

The explanation was longer than that, but she didn’t think Sawyer needed to know all the details. The Cliffs Notes version would do.

“Oh,” he said. “Are you a siren?”

“Yeah, I am,” Gemma said, her voice heavy with regret.

“But you’re not like the others.”

“Because I’m not as pretty?”

“No, no, you’re all pretty.” He waved off that idea. “But when I’m around you, I can actually think. You feel different.”

“I feel different?” Gemma raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never touched me.”

“No, not the way you physically feel. The way you … are, I guess,” Sawyer said. “Your presence when you walk into a room. You feel real. The other girls, they feel like dreams I made up in the night. Or sometimes they feel like nightmares.

“And I don’t know why you said you’re not as pretty,” Sawyer said. “You’re just as pretty as they are, maybe prettier when you smile.”

Gemma smiled. “Thanks.”

“If me and Penn don’t work out, do you think that we could go on a date sometime?” Sawyer asked.

“Me and you?” Gemma laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Sawyer asked. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

She kept smiling, but it became pained. Gemma had been trying not to think about Alex that much, since it wouldn’t do her any good, and it still broke her heart a little every time she did.

“Yeah,” she said thickly. “I do have a boyfriend.”