I'd been on edge since Fajr.
When the email came in last night, I thought it was a mistake. A glitch in the scheduling system. An error someone in HR would correct by morning.
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.
Replaced with joint sessions, team strategy reviews, and onboarding syncs... all with Lamija Begović.
I stared at my calendar for a full five minutes, just waiting for it to shift back.
It didn't.
I prayed Fajr at the masjid near my apartment, the one with peeling blue paint and a heater that hummed too loudly.
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.
I tried to focus during sujood, whispered du'a between breaths.
Ya Allah... make me enough.
On the drive to the office, I didn't play Qur'an like usual.
Just silence.
Sarajevo was still half-asleep, the city bathed in that cold, pre-sunlight stillness.
Zehira texted me just before I pulled into the lot:
Zehira: Good luck, ljubavi. You'll be brilliant.
It almost made me smile.
Even her mother knew what a difficult woman she'd raised.
I should've gone upstairs.
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.
But instead, I turned left.
Down to the garage level.
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.
Same humming vending machine.
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.
My father's would've been three from the end.
He used to let me sit in his truck while he checked in with dispatch.
That's where I first saw her.
Lamija was fourteen.
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.
Boots too clean for the garage.
She walked in with a box of new company merch to hand out to the drivers—hats, hoodies, branded mugs.
I was gone the moment I saw her.
She handed a jacket to my father.
Then looked at me.
"You're Ibrahim's boy?" she asked.
I nodded, ears burning.
The cap she put on my head was comically big.
I could barely see past the brim.
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.
The way my mother cried without sound.
The way she remarried four months later like my father was a chapter she could close and shelve.
Her new husband didn't want baggage.
I was the baggage.
She left me with my uncle, a man who only tolerated me because he shared a last name with my father. The house was cold even when the heaters were on. I ate alone. Slept with the door locked. Did laundry by hand because no one thought to show me the machine.
Zehira Begović started asking around.
In the masjids.
At the community center.
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.
I still remember the way she pushed past him without waiting for permission.
"Get your things, Ayub. You're coming with me."
And just like that, I did.
I was sixteen when I moved into the Begović house.
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.
Access.
An education I never dreamed of affording.
Tutors. Travel.
A desk in the corner of the estate library stocked with everything I needed.
They treated me like a son—not just with warmth, but with investment.
The kind you pour into a future you believe in.
Even now, they're the closest thing I have to parents.
And Lamija...
Lamija was fire and gravity and sharpness in human form.
I learned quickly to keep my distance.
To look, but not linger.
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.
Closed my eyes.
Spoke softly into the space like I used to do when I was a boy sitting in the truck.
"Babo... they want me to work under her now."
I swallowed.
"She's not that little girl anymore. She runs an entire division.
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.
No chatter. No phones ringing.
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.
Too early.
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.
Not until I figured out how to say it without sounding like a coward.
My new desk was in the operations wing—closer to Lamija's glass-encased office.
Front row seats to the storm.
I dropped my bag onto the desk and pulled out my tablet.
The welcome packet was already open—color-coded folders, division performance graphs, open contracts.
She was nothing if not thorough.
There was a note at the bottom of one file:
Review before the 10am sync. Come prepared. –L.B.
Short. Sharp. Efficient.
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.
My stomach knotted.
Not because I couldn't do it—but because I'd spent years trying to keep my distance.
And now I was being asked to stand beside her, hold my own, and pretend I wasn't still the boy who remembered the way she said,
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—
trying to figure out how to ask the one question I already knew he wouldn't want to answer.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Notes from Ash&Olive:
So. We met Ayub.
He prays, he panics, he trauma-bonds with diesel fumes.
Very on brand for someone who's about to work under a woman who could shatter him with a sentence and then move on with her day.
Is he emotionally prepared for this transition?
No.
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)