How to tell if he likes me?

So we're both in 8th grade (and please don't give me answers on how I'm too young to think about boys and concentrate on my work and everything because I already know that school comes first, then friends, then boys lol) we had free seating in homeroom all last week and I was sick like barely understand me cuz my voice is so scratchy sick adn blow my nose constantly sick. So I walked in and set my stuff on my my desk the boy i like (lets call him Alex) goes "I'm gonna sit by you today!" and sits down behind which where my friend (let's just say his name's zack) is supposed sit. So we started talked and everything until zack came. then he was like 'Alex dude that's my seat' and alex said 'so we have free seating' so 'zack' just sat in front of me and spent the entire time talking to those two then the next day the same thing happened but 'alex' wasn't as talkative, he seemed tired.. then the next day he looked the same and i asked him and he said he was just tired then he was normal hyper self then the day after that he was already sitting down when I came in and I was freaking out about how soft his hair was and he goes 'feel my hair! it's really soft!' and I laughed and said im not feeling your hair then he went come on! so i did lol then he made up free hug fridays and asked me if i wanted a hug and i said yeah. then he said then come over here and i said I'm not getting up and he said the same thing then i said i guess i don't a hug then and he got up and hugged me but i didn't see him hug anybody else for the rest of the day. then this week it started the same as last week but now he doesn't really talk to me as much. so I wanna know do you think he likes me? he's a little bit of a flirt...