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 shifted the cat and the laptop and shed his shoes and jeans before crawling into the warm spot Yazid had left behind. Moxie murred unhappily and stalked around the end of the bed crossly.


“Leave it out, daft cat,” Yazid mumbled, scratching her ears before joining Ali and lifting an arm. “Come on.”


Ali moulded himself up against that chest, and locked his arm over that lean waist. “I’m sorry,” he repeated quietly.


Yazid kissed the top of his head and fumbled the laptop back open with one hand. “You can treat me to breakfast-in-bed tomorrow,” he said. “But for now, it’s fine, okay? You blew up. It happens, bad day, whatever, get over it.”


Ali laughed wetly, and squeezed. “You’re a saint.”


“You are,” Ali breathed. “I’m lucky, and I’m sorry, and I’ll do better next time.”


“Oh please,” Yazid said. “At least this time you had a reason. I still don’t know what I did last time you threw a fit.”


Chapter 46