Are you sure he NEEDS to hear that? I bet he is fully aware of your feelings towards him. Maybe stop with the assuming, go into the convo with no agenda, with an open mind and let it happen and flow naturally.

Stop rehearsing the convo in your head and just let it be as it unfolds. How many times have these convos gone exactly how you planned? Or thought they would?

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus

Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm