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

“We moved, and the new house was smaller, and Tony and I had to share a room.”


Yazid got a cold feeling in his stomach. “Al…”


Ali squeezed his hand and shook his head. “No, just listen. I’ve always known I was gay. Always. Like, I remember being five and this girl at primary school gave me a daisy chain and asked me to kiss her and I ran away and hid in the cloakrooms.”


Yazid laughed. “I think that’s a five-year-old thing, not a gay thing.”


Ali shoved his hip and half-smiled. “Listen, stop giving a running commentary.”


“Hurry up, then,” Yazid whined, still stroking Ali’s knee. He propped his head up on one hand, and didn’t miss how Ali’s gaze flickered to the way his jeans shifted on his hips.


“And—you know, he wasn’t the best of older brothers, but he wasn’t such a bigot. He just ignored me mostly. He’d look out for me and Jo in school. But it was always him looking out for Jo ‘cause she’s a girl, so…not so much me.”


Chapter 22