bb vinny steffy mashup hw
Credit: Images: Howard Wise/JPI (2)

Actually, it’s a story that the CBS soap should have played ages ago. Luckily, it’s not too late.

Lately, The Bold and the Beautiful has been, as the kids say, fire. Sure, Steffy became a full-fledged drug addict in less time than it takes to sit through a commercial break, but the fallout from that development has made for spectacular drama. (Like, seriously, are we hurtling toward a custody battle over little Kelly?!?) On top of that, we — and viewers in general, right? — really dig Steffy’s new love interest, Finn.

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But ever since the harried heroine started receiving “gifts” from Vinny, we’ve been a little forlorn. “Why?” you ask. Because we love the soap’s shirt-averse drug dealer and have long wanted to see a romance played out between Steffy and him. And it isn’t just our affection for the good-hearted bad boy that has such a relationship atop our wish list, it’s the potential for The Bold and the Beautiful to do one of the things that it’s always done best: a push/pull between the haves/have nots. Think Ridge and Brooke back in her cater waiter days. Think Rick and Maya when they first caught one another’s eye. Think Ridge and Shauna before her plotting with Quinn damaged her so badly.

Matthew Atkinson, Joe LoCicero "The Bold and the Beautiful" thomas vinny shirtless

“Bro, my abs are just, like, better. Deal with it.”

Credit: Image: Jill Johnson/JPI

Joe LoCicero’s Vinny could behave as if he never dreamed that Jacqueline MacInnes Wood’s highfalutin Steffy would give him the time of day — even as he secretly dreamed of her giving him her 24/7. And Steffy could act as if she never noticed Vinny any more than she ever had the help. As far as she was concerned, he was just, ya know, there. Like that sofa. But in reality, she’d get the sense that he saw her as not even her family and friends do. He saw the woman, the soul, the aching heart. That [bleep] is hard to resist.

Then, of course, the show could have played all of the obstacles to their getting together. Steffy Forrester with a lowlife drug dealer? “Mm-mm, no,” the world would say. “But he’s not just a lowlife drug dealer,” she’d have to respond. And it would be up to Vinny to prove that she was right.

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Even now that the ship seems to have sailed where Steffy’s romantic future is concerned — congrats, Finn — The Bold and the Beautiful could still set the storyline in motion. Have a jealous Vinny cut off Steffy unless she threw over her doctor suitor and began letting him squire her around. Everybody would be like, “WTH?” Still, she’d be desperate enough to go along with it to get her fix — and, knock wood, long enough to realize that, “Oh, crap! There’s more to this Vinny guy than I ever imagined. Could I… Do I have real feelings for him?”

Detangling the web that the addict and her supplier would weave around themselves would take… wow, ’round-the-clock crews of detanglers. (Not to mention a whole lotta therapy!) But it would be so, so worth it to introduce into the fancypants Forresters’ inner circle an outsider whose perspective is as different and relevant as Vinny’s. Yeah, he does crappy stuff to pay the bills; he also didn’t inherit a freakin’ fortune from his forebears. He’s a part of a real world for which they have no point of reference… at least for now.

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What do you think, Bold & Beautiful fans? Would you like to see the show try Steffy and Vinny together? Or are we as high as she is after she’s received one of his “gifts”? While you contemplate what to comment below, why not check out this photo gallery, which runs down your five favorite characters from the show. We’re not making any promises, but one of their names just might rhyme with Effy.