Some men think a woman crosses her arms because she’s cold, or defensive.
But the truth is — sometimes she’s hiding something much deeper.
Not anger.
Not rejection.
Something she doesn’t want anyone to see… especially him.
When Olivia stood in front of Jacob that night, her arms were folded tight across her chest. The café was warm, soft jazz humming through the speakers, rain running down the glass. But she wasn’t protecting herself from the chill — she was hiding the tremor in her hands.
He had that effect on her.
Jacob wasn’t loud or charming. He spoke slow, calm, with that steady kind of presence that made silence feel intimate. Every word he said landed heavy, like it had meaning.
And she hated that she liked it.
Because women like Olivia — 38, divorced, sharp-tongued when she needed to be — didn’t let men see her anymore. She knew the game, she knew the damage. But when he looked at her that way — that quiet, searching kind of look — she felt something pull inside her.
So she crossed her arms.
To keep herself from reaching for him.
Jacob noticed. He always noticed. The way her jaw clenched when she tried to hide a smile, the way she shifted her weight when he got too close, the way her lips parted — just slightly — when she wanted to say something she shouldn’t.
“You do that every time,” he said softly.
Her eyes flickered. “Do what?”
“Cross your arms. Right when you start wanting to say something real.”
She laughed — too quickly — and looked away. But he didn’t move. He didn’t try to touch her, didn’t tease. He just waited.
And that patience undid her.
Because behind that folded pose, she wasn’t protecting herself from him — she was protecting the secret that her body was already betraying.
Her pulse. Her breathing.
The quiet ache of wanting to be touched again after years of pretending she didn’t.
When he finally stepped closer, his hand brushed her elbow — barely a touch, a whisper of skin. She froze.
Her arms slowly lowered.
And in that small motion, everything she’d been holding in came pouring out — not in words, but in the look she gave him.
It wasn’t a confession. It was surrender.
Because sometimes when a woman crosses her arms, it’s not distance — it’s tension.
It’s her way of holding herself together before she falls apart.
It’s how she hides the trembling that starts when someone finally makes her feel alive again.
Jacob didn’t smile. He just said quietly, “There you are.”
And for the first time in years, Olivia didn’t cross her arms. She let them fall to her sides — and let him see the truth she’d been hiding all along.