Reluctant at first to admit she cares about him, Samantha misses him while he is on location. Smith returns from his film and shows her true affection, which Samantha finds unsettling. (As she explains to Carrie, he tried to do something purely perverse to her in public: "He tried to hold my hand.") Samantha struggles with Smith's status as a teen icon and their age difference. She ends up deliberately humiliating him by hooking up with her ex-flame Richard at a party she went to with Smith. After a quick bout of clearly meaningless sex with Richard, during which he talks about himself, Samantha seeks out Smith, who has been waiting for her to realize she made a mistake and come back. She tearfully confesses that she hates what she just did to him. Eventually, she begins referring to Smith as her boyfriend. It appears that the two live together, since Smith refers to her place as "home," and he has keys to the apartment.