Parties and fireworks on the fourth of July were as American as apple pie and Wilson had always loved every minute of the patriotic neighborhood celebration as a kid. He’d even been allowed – under strict parental supervision – to shoot a few bottle rockets.

Naturally, when he’d gotten the condo he’d gone about organizing a party for all of his neighbors to be celebrated in a nearby park, even splurging on some bottle rockets to shoot for old time’s sake.

Something House wasn’t planning to let him forget as he watched his friend eat a barbecue sandwich with bandage-swathed burned hands.