Chapter ten: Reputation

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Surprising you with another chapter because you are all so patient when waiting for my slow updates. But I promise I'll be updating on a regular basis as I have lots of ideas for this Katnic fanfic.

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When I wake up, Dominic and I are tangled up together on the sofa. it takes me a few seconds to recollect what happened last night. The bar, Dom punching a guy in my defence, him coming over and us watching movies until three in the morning. I rub my eyes and then manage to unravel myself from him without waking him up. I stand and go straight for my handbag and pull out my phone. It's just before noon. The tonnes of messages and missed calls in my notifications shoots anxiety through me. One text message from Emeraude stands out to me;

'This is fucking bullshit' she said with a link to an article.

JustJared pops open when I press the link. The headline said "SHADOWHUNTERS STAR DOMINIC SHERWOOD ANGER ISSUES?"

"What the hell?" I murmur to myself as I scroll down.

The article talks about Dom Sherwood being seen punching a patron as the Tavern last night and they clearly have no idea what the situation was because this article made Dom look like a bad guy who goes assaulting people for no reason. A photo appears near the bottom of Dom being dragged out the Tavern by security with a visible bloody hand.

This would ruin Dom's reputation. I can only imagine how upset his management would be with him.

"Kat?" Dom's voice is sleepy.

I spin around so I can see him. "Um, you should check your phone," I tell him unsure of what else to say.

He furrows his eyebrows but quickly sits up and reaches across to grab his phone that's sitting on the table. I nervously watch as his facial expressions change and I know he's reading the article because he looks frustrated. He drops his head in his hand. I walk over to him and place a hand on his shoulder, unsure of how to comfort him.

"It's just a misinformed article, you should clear it up," I advise him.

"I have to go get this sorted with my agent," he says as he rushes to grab his jacket that fell on the floor during the night.

"Are you sure you don't want some coffee first?" I offer.

"Kat, this could hurt my career." I'm sure he didn't mean to say it in a snappy way, and I try not to take it personally.

Before I can say anything, he's out the door and I'm left alone in my apartment. I take a seat back on the sofa and open up twitter. Tweets from the Shadowhunters fandom pop up on my timeline. There are supportive tweets but there are also tweets that bash Dom. I couldn't stand that he was getting this unnecessary hate and it was because of me. I had to tell them the facts. I owed it to Dominic. I take a deep breath as I think about what I want to say, and then start typing.

'I know there's a lot of confusion about the situation with Dom and I want to clear this up and say that Dom was NOT the aggravator. He was protecting me from a man who thought he had the right to inappropriately touch me. I for one, respect that my colleague had decided to stand up for me. Please wait for the facts before you slam people. He deserves nothing but support.'

I read the tweet over twenty times before I click tweet. The tweet gets hundreds of favorites and retweets with in a minute, and I put down my phone so I can't see the replies. 

I'm still wearing my clothes from last night so I decide to take a shower. The warm water runs over my body, I wash my bright red hair and then step out to dry myself. I change into a white blouse and black jeans. My stomach rumbles so I rummage through my pantry but all I find is maple syrup and a jar of pasta sauce.

Suddenly there's a knock at my door. When I open it, Emeraude is standing there.

She pushes her dark, oversized sunglasses onto the top of her head. "Let's go get lunch." she doesn't ask me, she tells me.

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Emeraude sits across from me at a café named The Coffee Express. I order chicken carbonara and a matcha latte. 

"Have you spoken to Dom today?" She asks as she slices her salmon.

"He actually stayed over mine last night," I reply casually.

Emeraude looks up from her plate and stops chewing. "Oh my god, you didn't."

"What? No, it's not like that," I rush to tell her. "It was just friends watching movies."

"Kat, you are pushing the line."

"How is watching movies pushing the line?" I question, feeling defensive.

"Okay, let me ask you this; where did he sleep?"

"On the couch," I answer confidently.

"And where did you sleep?"

"On the couch," I drag the sentence out as I realize she's right. Myfork bangs on the plate as I drop it. I groan. "What am I suppose to do?"

"Either tell him how you feel or put some distance between the two of you," she responds like the solution is easy.

"We work together! We portray a couple!"

"But filming for the season two finale ends in two weeks and we don't start season three for months. You'll have months away from Dom which is plenty of time to get over your crush."

Emeraude is right. Maybe this means I shouldn't go to England with Dom. Maybe staying away from him is how I can finally get over my feelings and everything can go back to normal. Should I tell Dom that I can't accept his invitation? 

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