17F & 17M - Am I reading too much into this, or is he just taking things slowly?

I’ll call him Rick for privacy.
Rick and I used to be really close. We’d text all the time, call almost every night, and almost every time we called we’d end up falling asleep on the phone together.
Eventually things ended. Looking back, there were real issues, and I know I played a big role in them. A lot of the problems came from my side, and I take responsibility for that. On top of that, our circumstances made everything even harder.
For a long time I didn’t have a car, so we never actually got to see each other in person. Our entire relationship was through texting and phone calls. Because of that, there weren’t many fun memories or experiences together to balance things out. We were constantly talking, and a lot of those conversations turned into discussions about problems. It felt like one issue would lead to another, and everything eventually became emotionally heavy.
Recently we’ve slowly started reconnecting.
This week we’ve talked Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Before that, he’d been liking my Instagram stories (especially ones with me in them), reacting to pictures of me, complimenting me, and one time replied to one of my stories saying, “What are you doing double caked up on the story?” We joked back and forth, and when I replied with the eyes emoji, he hearted it.
He’s also been sending me random pictures from his day (Waffle House, the pool, work, the gym), texting me first without needing a story reply, sending me TikToks, and even randomly logging into my TikTok account (we’ve always been comfortable enough to have each other’s account info).
One night I told him I wanted to call.
Instead of saying yes or no, he replied:
“You know what that will lead to.”
I asked,
“Lead to what? Lmaoo? I just wanted to chat.”
He replied,
“Falling asleep on the phone.”
That caught me off guard because that’s exactly what we always used to do whenever we called. I honestly wasn’t even thinking about that—I genuinely just wanted to hear his voice.
I told him that, and he replied,
“I understand what you wanted.”
The conversation ended normally after that.
I’m trying really hard not to rush anything this time. I don’t want us to go back to making everything emotionally heavy. I’d rather rebuild slowly through little conversations, random updates, jokes, and eventually hanging out in person when we can.

So I wanted some outside opinions. Am I reading too much into his response? Does it sound like he’s reconnecting but being cautious because of our history? If you were in his position, how would you have meant the “falling asleep on the phone” comment?