Rejected a guy, now I think I’ve fallen for him, is it too late?

Hey ladies! Long post but TL;DR : seeking advice if I (21) should pursue this guy(24) who liked me or forget about him in the romantic sense.

Over the summer I had a job and met a fellow student. We really hit it off, he was very outgoing and funny. Little did I know he kept coming to talk to me because he liked me and ‘wanted to see where things would go’. He would also constantly touch me like when he was telling a joke and also always mentioned his ex (which like I don’t give a shit, he was clrealy trying to make me jealous). Well one day he asked me if I wanted to hang out after work but never mentioned the word “date”. All he said was “you know what the implications are, right?” and I said “what implications?” And he just said nevermind. Listen, I ’m down to be asked out on a date but if you don’t even have the courage to utter the word then I’m sorry that’s kind of a turn off. Because to me that means that a man can’t even take control. Also when we were heading to the bus together after work he told me I made him nervous. Like wtf I didn’t know how to react to that. Anyways, I really liked this guy but as a friend. I didn’t really feel a romantic pull towards him and that’s what I told him: after hanging out after work we started talking about relationships and stuff and I said I wasn’t looking for anything at the moment. He was quite upset and said since I laughed at all his jokes and talked to him that he thought I was interested. I then realized that this guy really thinks that if any girl approaches him then she wants him, he told me this about a few coworkers.

I still maintained a really good friendship with him throughout the duration of my internship and while it was awkward the day after I rejected him, everything went back to normal. We would get coffee and lunch together as usual.

So near the end of the summer I started to get feelings for him. After all he was the only person I hung out with and I felt that despite his “nice guy” personality we were pretty compatible.

I was thinkinng of getting back in touch with him during the winter holidays, do you think that’s a good idea? Sure he probably will have moved on but if not, how should I proceed?

Thanks so much for reading!