Why hasn't he responded?

Hello everyone!

Okay, so there's this guy that likes me. Actually he LOVES me. We're both 14, and he's already thinking of our marriage and our kids. I think it's sweet, but my friends think it's gross. Everyone seems to hate him except for the people in his school. He's popular in school and everything. But i've started developing feelings for this guy, idk why. ANYWAY. So he we were texting two weeks ago for a long time. He called me beautiful and started asking me what I liked in a guy. Then, last week he went on a cruise. And then he came back on Friday. So he texted me saying hey. I responded like three hours later saying hey how was your cruise? And then he texted me a few minutes later saying that it was great, he asked me how my Christmas was, and he inserted two blushing emojis (if you have an iPhone you would know) and I said that Christmas was great as well. Okay so I responded back the NEXT MORNING because I got my phone taken for the night. He read the message EXACTLY one minute after I sent it, but didn't respond. I thought that maybe he was busy, so he'd respond later. This all happened yesterday. So yesterday I was kiking his best friend, and he sent me a pic of their texts. So turns out that the guy I like had responded a few hours after he read my text, which makes me wonder, does he still like me? He's been obsessed with me for over 3 months, and basically daydreams about me. Do you think he likes me or not? I don't want to text him because I don't want people to think that I've started to like him (people have started suspecting). Is there a reason for why he may not have responded?