Is it normal to fall in love w/ my best friend, and does he love me?

So there's this guy who I met my first year of college, and throughout the year we were always good friends and we would like talk and joke a lot. but like the last few months of college all these rumors were getting started of us being a couple, and we weren't... so we talked about it and at the time I was ok with it, later I started to realize I did like him... So during the last month or so of college and choir tour, we were like together all the time and telling each other everything he says he knows we act like a couple, but he doesnt want to change the way we act... and during summer we write these massively long e-mails that are like 1000 to 2000 words long, and we can talk about most anything.... he's really shy, but could he like me and just not want to tell me yet? or could it be I just totally fell for him and he just sees me as a friend....