Is this Taurus man interested?

Hi,

I apologize if this post seems pointless or stupid, but there's this Taurus man that's been driving me crazy for a long time now, and I need some Taurus input (I don't have any Taurus people in my life unfortunately).

I'll try to squash everything into as small of a post as possible, please take it with a grain of salt from a 23 yo Cancer woman who's DESPERATE.

TLDR: There's a Taurus man I'm attracted to at my workplace sending mixed but moreso positive signals and idk if he's just being friendly or feels the same.

There's a Taurus man at my workplace, much older but we like silver foxes in this house. I'll write down some things he did recently, and I need y'all to tell me if I'm just delusional or if he is interested in something.

1. He likes to make fun of me, but it never crosses the line he usually crosses no problem. He likes to playfully nag at everyone, but recently I've noticed that his jabs at me are less mean than they are with other people. He likes to call me a trouble maker and called me "rude in just the right sense" many times (I hope this makes sense, I'm trying my best to translate it from my mother language). We genuinely jab at each other in such a risque borderline-suggestive way to the point where I had people witnessing our convos genuinely shocked, but that was a whole ago. One guy coworker said that this Taurus of "mine" is totally interested, but one can only guess.

2. I catch him gazing at me a lot recently. When we're in the same room, we lock eyes a bunch, and often he smiles at me too (he has the hottest smile I TELL YOU). That's something even my coworker noticed, she once told me that every time he made a joke when we had a three-way conversation, he made sure to look at me as if he was checking that I laughed. Recently he came to work just as I was ending my shift, and it wasn't the usual "hello I am looking at you because we're greeting each other and now I'm looking somewhere else because I'm walking off", we looked at each other (and he was smiling ughhhh) until he exited my line of sight. Mind you this might have been just because I was looking at him first, whoops, but at the same time it's not like I was holding a gun to his head to keep looking at me right?

3. He started asking about my interests. Recently I fulfilled my lifelong dream of owning a horse, and he kept asking about it when I mentioned saving up, how far along I am etc etc. When I managed to buy the said horse, he came up to me out of nowhere and asked to see a picture of it, told me that it's a really nice horse and that he'd like to see it irl some day (even though he mentioned being scared of horses before??). My coworker (the same one as before lol, she's my partner in crime) also told me that before I finalized the purchase, he showed concerns when I wasn't around, asking her if she thinks that I'll make it. And also I once brought my Pokémon collection to work and despite making harmless fun of me for bringing it to work, he asked to see it and asked a bunch of questions.

4. My partner-in-crime coworker asked him about me recently when I wasn't around and his reaction was... unusual, for him at least. She asked him something along the lines of "So you're messing with * my name * 's head now, eh?" (Idk if I'm translating it correctly but just to clarify, it's meant in a romantic/sexual sense in my language when you say that) and instead of poking fun back like he usually does, he allegedly stayed silent, stared at the ground and smiled until she said the next thing, changing the subject, to which he returned to his usual playfully-mean self. I keep thinking about that one specifically.

5. I think he might be aware of my attraction to him and he didn't voice any discomfort as far as I'm aware. Recently I called to work, mean I did have a small reason for it but I specifically picked time where I knew that he'd pick up. And during the call, he told me "You wouldn't have called if there was someone else who'd pick up, would you." I told him that probably not, he laughed and then went on with the previous topic.

What makes me confused is the mixed signals he keeps sending otherwise. Because one time I flirt with him and he reacts positively, but the next time I flirt and he quite sternly reminds me to stay on the topic of work. And then the next time the reaction is positive, the next time it's positive again, then bam, negative. And the cycle repeats.

I'm sorry, this for longer than I wanted to but it's been MONTHS, and I just want to know what I'm dealing with. Sorry if this seems confusing, it's almost midnight here and I'm using the last parts of my scrambled brain to type this down. Thanks for any input. And thanks if you read that all lol.