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

Over a year ago now, though, and the sight of him in the kitchen, wrist-deep in flour and raw dough, was a beautiful reminder of that.


“Hello,” Ali said, kissing a dusty cheek. “Creating?”


“Dunno yet, haven’t put the flavouring in. We’re out of almonds, before you suggest it.”


Ali leaned a hip against the counter. “I’m never letting you go, you realize that? You cook, you play my games with me, you do the laundry, you look after the cat, you change light bulbs…all we have to do is get you cleaning, and you’ll be fully house-trained.”


Yazid snorted. “Oh aye? Is that when you marry me, then? Make an honest woman out of me?”


Chapter 41