Free Almost Like Love by Abigail Strom

it. “Hi, Kate.”
    “Hi.” She stood back to let him in, nodding politely.
    How could you go from sharing a bed with someone to this stiff, awkward formality in less than forty-eight hours?
    They sat down across from each other in the living room, she in an armchair and he on the couch. Chris crossed his legs, the way he did when he was nervous, and sat without speaking, his teeth sunk in his lower lip.
    She was determined to make him speak first. He was the one who’d wanted to talk.
    After what felt like five minutes but was probably more like thirty seconds, Chris finally said, “Thanks for letting me come by.”
    “Sure.”
    “I want . . .” He paused to clear his throat. “I want to apologize for the way I handled things on Friday.”
    He was sorry for the way he’d handled things? “It might be more to the point to apologize for cheating on me, but okay.”
    He flushed. “I didn’t mean to cheat on you. I mean . . . I didn’t realize what was happening with Anastasia until it was too late.”
    If she’d thought she could hear about his other woman without a pang, she’d been wrong.
    “What the hell kind of name is Anastasia?” she heard herself snap. “Is she heir to the Romanovs, or what?”
    He flinched. “Anastasia is . . . Anastasia is . . .” His hands fluttered in the air a moment before coming to rest on his knees. “Anastasia is gone.”
    She stared at him. “What do you mean, gone?”
    “She left for Mexico this morning. Or maybe Brazil. I can’t remember exactly what she said. She . . . she’s very . . . spontaneous.”
    “Is she.”
    Chris took a deep breath. “I was a jerk to you on Friday. I know that. I just . . . I was starting to feel trapped in our relationship. Like I couldn’t breathe. And then I met Anastasia, and she was so wild, so free . . .”
    The implication being that she wasn’t.
    A sudden wave of depression went through her. Chris had said all this on Friday, and she didn’t want to hear it again. Was this why he’d come over? To restate all the ways their relationship had been boring and predictable?
    All the ways she was boring and predictable?
    “But then, after she left this morning, I did some thinking. And I realized that I can’t have it all. No one can. Maybe this whole . . . episode . . . was just my version of wedding jitters or a midlife crisis or something.”
    “A midlife crisis? You’re thirty-two.”
    “Well, something else, then. To tell the truth, I’m not convinced that monogamy is a natural state for humans. Especially for men. I mean, think about it. Men are programmed to spread their seed as widely as possible. To propagate the species in a way that gives the greatest chance for survival.”
    Kate rubbed a hand over her eyes. Chris was a biology professor, and he voiced ideas like this occasionally. She’d always found his tendency to opine about human sexuality and natural selection sort of quirky and endearing, but she’d assumed his theories were just that: theories. It had never occurred to her that he might want to live his life according to them. To obey a biological imperative to “spread his seed as widely as possible.”
    “Look, Chris—”
    “Let me finish. I’m just saying that modern man has to come to grips with the paradox of his body telling him one thing and his mind another. Right? So . . . I’ve come to grips with it.”
    For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine where he was going with this.
    “I don’t—”
    “I want you , Kate.”
    She blinked.
    He was leaning forward now, his expression earnest. “I was a fool over Anastasia, but I learned something from the experience. I’ve learned that I can make a rational choice to overcome mere physical urges. My mind recognizes that you’re the mate I need. The woman I can build a successful, satisfying life with. Anastasia could never be a true partner or a dependable parent. Not like you. In the end, raw physical passion is only