A kind act leads to humiliation for an Emmerdale resident in upcoming episodes, and Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) is left feeling guilty about the situation.
Vinny Dingle (Bradley Johnson) opens up to Paddy about feeling lonely. Vinny, of course, was previously married to Liv Flaherty (Isobel Steele), who tragically died during an epic storm in 2022. Liv and Vinny were soul-mates and her death hit him hard.
In the weeks after Liv’s death Vinny felt so lost that he was hardly capable of looking after himself. Paddy was one of the people who really helped him, and in fact Paddy gave Vinny a dog, Chip, which gave him a reason to get up in the mornings and started helping him work through the grief.
Gradually he’s started to enjoy his life again, and he has some good friends including Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper). He recently confided to Belle that he is still a virgin, as Liv was asexual.
Belle’s evil husband Tom King (James Chase) used this fact to taunt Vinny and try to drive a wedge between him and Belle. Tom also suggested setting Vinny up on a date and suggested Gabby Thomas (Rosie Bentham) as being a suitable person.
When Paddy tells Mandy (Lisa Riley) that Vinny is feeling lonely she also thinks of Gabby, and asks her to spend some time with him.
Gabby does so and she gets on well with Vinny as always as they’ve been friends for a long time, but he misreads the situation and kisses her. It’s embarrassing for him when he realises he got things wrong and Gabby doesn’t feel the same and Vinny is apologetic.
Gabby tells him not to worry about it, but lets slip that Paddy and Mandy might have been behind the whole situation.
Poor Vinny is mortified, furious with Paddy for breaking his confidence and humiliated that Gabby was only spending time with him because people feel sorry for him.
Paddy also feels terrible for making his friend’s problems even worse.
But all may not be lost for Vinny. Gabby relays the whole story to Laurel (Charlotte Bellamy), who has some words of advice.
She says that Gabby might be pleasantly surprised if she tries to see beyond her usual type of man. Could Vinny be in with a chance after all?
