Steve and Eddie became roommates in the spring of 1988. The kids were finishing up their junior year of high school and Nancy, Robin, and Jonathan had been away at college for a few years.
A couple weeks after they’d moved into their apartment, when it was really time to clean the bathroom and do some laundry, Eddie had been horrified to find that Steve had never done either.
“But you can cook!” he’d exclaimed. “How can you make amazing Betty Crocker casseroles but you can’t clean a toilet?”
“Because our housekeeper didn’t cook, man,” Steve had explained. “She came in the morning and cleaned and did the laundry and shit and that was it. But unless I wanted to have pizza every night, I had to cook. So I made my own food.”
Eddie started calling Steve “Princess” after that, teasing him whenever he confessed that he’d never done some common household chore like change his sheets or vac the carpet.
“I mean, I’m no domestic God, Princess,” Eddie would say, voice low, head tilted as he looked at Steve from under his bangs, “but I’ve at least done it before.”