Patriotism has a bit of a different flavor after you've been smuggled away into a pocket dimension for four years. It's more nostalgic than anything else, a reminder of a bygone era when pizza could be delivered to your door and cell phones were ubiquitous. Even if it wasn't Captain America's birthday, I'd probably want to celebrate the Fourth, so I'm grateful for the invite even if it still throws me how quickly the lines between mutant and human disappear when everyone's the same.

Jamie was trying some of the goat and had a drink with a little blue umbrella, the latter of which he was enjoying so much that he wouldn't even claim he was holding it for Layla if asked. Between conversations, he'd taken to humming America the Beautiful under his breath, and he was halfway through the second verse when someone brushed up against him, sending him wildly off-key.

"Mm?"