
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAg9AIM4GFqL
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.82Please respect copyright.PENANAUPiByfYLm8
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAvpnDDmOEnw
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAst1htyUEf6
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.82Please respect copyright.PENANAFQjtgtgTBo
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAIoG0XKt7DC
Just silence.82Please respect copyright.PENANAFHPtzUGjFG
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANA4NN2GbsKbe
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.82Please respect copyright.PENANAz3YGcyiVGu
But instead, I turned left.82Please respect copyright.PENANAsueuJyJidZ
Down to the garage level.82Please respect copyright.PENANAWhna55ufg1
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.82Please respect copyright.PENANAyxPeJc2Q2z
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.82Please respect copyright.PENANASTjiIo4PQI
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.82Please respect copyright.PENANA1d6QbcHEU0
Same humming vending machine.82Please respect copyright.PENANAts1zoVsTVc
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.82Please respect copyright.PENANAQaphZgU68D
My father's would've been three from the end.82Please respect copyright.PENANA8PrgF9alkY
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAYKbNApEKZm
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.82Please respect copyright.PENANAAcerqlgOvF
Boots too clean for the garage.82Please respect copyright.PENANAe4oeSI3ASs
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANASrGVfKGUwo
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANANkQGbBcE11
I could barely see past the brim.82Please respect copyright.PENANABG7cXKim0r
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.82Please respect copyright.PENANAVgBdse0sUx
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.82Please respect copyright.PENANAfgeS2dZsQP
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.82Please respect copyright.PENANAHAi6DGvCyJ
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.82Please respect copyright.PENANAkvERbGa8gQ
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.82Please respect copyright.PENANAWgRtYbg6W6
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.82Please respect copyright.PENANAZoCH4yq7hc
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.82Please respect copyright.PENANAtSuLf1yXjq
The way my mother cried without sound.82Please respect copyright.PENANA0YJ5ERZEyB
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAvzZahho3PI
In the masjids.82Please respect copyright.PENANAyGSrwyhdvD
At the community center.82Please respect copyright.PENANAOEYSWJEcJ1
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.82Please respect copyright.PENANAilaMgYWFqQ
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAZzhsA5qu8f
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.82Please respect copyright.PENANAVOptIFE6Pz
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.82Please respect copyright.PENANAP4iZOeT0ob
Access.82Please respect copyright.PENANAILbrDf9mBi
An education I never dreamed of affording.82Please respect copyright.PENANAVg6IBOlQP9
Tutors. Travel.82Please respect copyright.PENANAwhQx3rCKfY
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAOB9j2PWYFL
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAuJaWLo5yhR
I learned quickly to keep my distance.82Please respect copyright.PENANAvk42bM7bQR
To look, but not linger.82Please respect copyright.PENANA7GMCZUGCDL
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.82Please respect copyright.PENANAfIm4QW6g5s
Closed my eyes.82Please respect copyright.PENANA7bp8a21mQl
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAvOX8xqIYUY
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.82Please respect copyright.PENANAptTSsyv0oz
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.82Please respect copyright.PENANAwa6brpiIwY
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.82Please respect copyright.PENANAVyNFqR89m4
No chatter. No phones ringing.82Please respect copyright.PENANADdijrVwswk
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.82Please respect copyright.PENANAyA6bucJzTX
Too early.82Please respect copyright.PENANAAxNnwLH11g
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.82Please respect copyright.PENANA2h9eOmuCtu
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANAmkFQpTZ2dP
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANATSHmOkbq7m
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANACURUF8Ai4k
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.82Please respect copyright.PENANAq1eL6cw1ER
My stomach knotted.82Please respect copyright.PENANA8Q2qAAb16A
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,82Please respect copyright.PENANAka1mTieojX
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.82Please respect copyright.PENANAhPlfKTHqIt
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.82Please respect copyright.PENANAUCTY5XwAzG
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—82Please respect copyright.PENANAGycxMNC2iv
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.82Please respect copyright.PENANArmQkf6TaQ6
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?82Please respect copyright.PENANAxt23uintL6
No.82Please respect copyright.PENANAzVpQDBYTFg
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?82Please respect copyright.PENANAJuzPweBaDH
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.82Please respect copyright.PENANAU0Fcb98UeJ
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.82Please respect copyright.PENANAts9jqhZKYc
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.82Please respect copyright.PENANAtkvXNPxNPi
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
82Please respect copyright.PENANAAef1tDUS4N