If you could save someone's life, would you? Anyone's? Ali's older brother has a swastika tattooed on his knuckles, a prison ID number for nearly beating an immigrant to death, and spent his teenage years ruthlessly persecuting Ali for being gay. Blood may be thicker than water, but Ali has spent most of his life desperate to prove he is nothing like Tony. A committed vegetarian, charity-supporter, and blood donor, Ali would do anything for anyone. Ali may share parentage with Tony, but he’s determined not to share anything else if he can help it. So when Tony contracts leukaemia, and Ali is the only match for the urgently-needed bone marrow transplant, Ali is caught between two equally awful choices: to refuse and condemn a man to death, or to donate. And in donating, save the life of the man who nearly murdered Ali's Iraqi boyfriend?

Thicker Than Bone

It had been such a large part of both their lives for so long that Ali had to actively stop himself from pressing the wrong button in the lift.


“Not anymore,” Yazid said cheerfully, jabbing the right one.


Ali smiled, dropping his head briefly again on Yazid’s shoulder.


“If one of your test results ever comes back positive again, I’ll kill you myself,” he promised.


“Yeah. Cancer won’t get a fucking look-in.”


Yazid laughed. “Seems a bit unfair on me. I can’t help it.”


“Yep,” Ali said loftily, and took advantage of the privacy of the lift to kiss Yazid on the jaw before the doors slid open and they were spewed into a bustling corridor. He pulled away, but kept hold of that hand. “I’ve gotten used to you being better this last year.”


Yazid wiggled his fingers in Ali’s grip, the knuckles shifting and settling rhythmically. Ali squeezed until he stopped—and then stopped himself, staring at the entrance to the ward.


Chapter 11