Mike turned to Sara. His face was streaked with glitter, beer, and joy. “Thank you,” he said.
“That’s the point,” Mike grinned. “Cup Madness.”
Then, a tap on her shoulder.
“Forget the bag,” he said.
It began, as most great disasters do, with a late-night message and a flash sale on airline tickets. Sara, a strategic project manager from Toronto who color-coded her sock drawer, saw the notification first: “FIFA World Cup – Rio de Janeiro – 75% off.” Mike, her polar opposite—a spontaneous travel photographer who once hitchhiked across Morocco with only a harmonica and a roll of film—was already booking before she finished reading the price aloud.