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

Ali blinked, shaking off the dark thoughts. Memories.


“Don’t wind yourself up about it,” Yazid said, and held out half the steak bake. “I’m not feeling this, you want it?”


“Nice try,” Ali said, pushing it back. “And it’s meat, I’m not eating it. If you don’t, I’ll tell Sharon you want her to cut your hair.”


Yazid chuckled before biting into the bake again.


“So…I should call the consultant when I get home?”


“Well, I’d wait until tomorrow, he’d probably be pretty pissed if you called him on a Sunday.”


Ali hummed, and leaned back slowly. The question churned restlessly in his head—what if he was a match? What then? He asked it, and Yazid’s hand clenched around his briefly before it was withdrawn again.


“Cross that bridge when you come to it,” Yazid said, and heaved himself up. “Back to work with you, you work-shy scrounger.”


“I earn more than you, andI pay all the bills.”


Chapter 21