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

“If I let him die, what would you do?”


“That’s a lot of nothing,” Ali breathed, but found a small smile working its way up his face.


“There’s nothing here for me to do something about,” Yazid shrugged. “I’m on your side, right now and when you make the choice and whatever happens after. Nothing changes for me, so I’ve got nothing to do.”


Ali kissed his cheek and paused there to inhale. Yazid smelled of shower gel and the faintest, underlying stench of stale cigarettes and cheap beer.


Ali kissed his jaw again before stepping back.


“Let’s get you a filthy takeaway,” he said quietly, “and go home and just…be together for a bit, yeah? I need to just have a bit of time away from all of it, without Mum and Jo pressurising me.”


Chapter 62