What was meant by this verbal expression?

[How_Do_I_Know]

There is a guy that I have had a crush on now for a while. I just recently gone away for a month and hadn't seen or spoke to him since before I left. He is a co-worker of mine. While I was away, I thought of him less and less and was so ecstatic that I had possibly gotten him out of my head. I was wrong.

 

When I returned to work, I still hadn't thought about him even when I saw him again. I didn't even say hi to him just walked past him. He then approached ME first as he usually does and we started talking again. He was so focused on me that I began to wonder whether or not this guy really does like me as well. See he was the one who initially started to flirt with me a while back. I had thought well, maybe he's just like that but I noticed he would always stare at me and only me and other very obvious things as well. So I never did anything about it. I just kept to myself that I had a major crush on him and left it at that.

 

So, since I had been transferred to a different unit as him, but still in the same building, I emailed him and asked him how things went while I was away. His response was : "Ever since you left, the others haven't been doing enough. What is up with that? It was good to see you again."

 

OK... so he had NEVER really directly told me that he is interested except for little gestures like this one and flirting here and there, so... how should I make of this remark he made? Should I take it as him being "just friendly" or should I take it as him saying "things weren't the same without you, i am happy to see you back? I missed you?"

 

If you would only be able to see how he is around me, you'd probably think the same as me with the 'miss you' part. Also, I noticed that when I had been talking to him , his friend/co-worker had joked with him as I left. My friend/co-worker told me that they looked to see if I was gone and smiled/joked/laughed... what could that mean? If I put myself into his shoes, if my firend ahd a crush on someone and was talking to her me and the girls would tease her and laugh and remark on how she is blushing and how cute he is... I dunno, maybe I am looking into this too much, but I have begun to like him again more so than before.