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

So—naturally—the phone chose to ring.


“Oh, fuck it,” Ali grumbled, tossing the magazine aside and getting up. Moxie meowed plaintively, but he had to get it—it would be Kevin demanding where that fucking useless twat of yourswas. “Hi, Kev, he’s—”


“Oh,” Ali said, and blinked. “How’d—” He wanted to ask how she got his number, as Jo and Ali spoke even less than Ali spoke to his mother, but decided against it. “How are you?” he tried instead.


“Not great,” Jo said. “Mum called me last night in tears, Ali.”


Ali’s gut clenched, and he felt suddenly angry. “So you’re calling me?”


“It was about you,” Jo snapped. “If you’re going to leave Tony to his own chances, then tell her that. Let her prepare herself.”


Ali gritted his teeth. “I haven’t decided yet.”


“It’s not a pair of shoes, Ali! You need to decide now.”


“So what should I decide?” he snapped. “I always said I’d save anyone’s life if I could, but it’s Tony.”


Chapter 55