Guys text you if they actually have interest in you, right?

Ok, so welcome to my little conundrum. (And, just to preface this, we knew each other before this but it’s only been recent that we’ve become closer and became friends)

There is this guy that I made friends with, 18M, and I can genuinely say that I want to be friends even if nothing else happens between us. It is a new friendship, mind you, of about two weeks. It is out in the open that I have a little crush on him, and he has openly said that I’m cute, pretty, and he wants to get to know me better. In person he is very friendly and funny, and we overall have a fun time hanging out on occasion after a game or taking a couple minute walk during school. Others have caught him looking at me when I wasn’t looking, and smiling. He has made comments like “I feel like I don’t see you much at school anymore” and “Wait, now I’m sad, I’ll have to wait to see you until tomorrow.”
I’m a team manager, and during the last game he was looking at me and grinning at me and seemingly pulling faces in order to get me to smile, and he lightly bopped me on the elbow when he was running by during a warmup.

ALL of these things point to him showing interest in, at least, being friends. But he does NOT text me. I usually text him, and I’ve decided to stop doing that a lot because I hate being the one to initiate every conversation. He doesn’t really like my stories a lot anymore either. This whole situation is just odd to me. I’m not upset by it rather than confused, but is something flying over my head here?? It’s not even that I’m overly concerned about this, just baffled.