What is my ball python trying to tell me ??

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So I got my male Mojave ball python last wendsday, he's my first snake too. Anyway, so I asked the staff when is the feeding schedule and what do you feed it? So he said its going to be on Saturday and small adult mice. So I was like great took him home. My hot side temp is at constant 90F, and cold side is low 80F but when it comes at night both temp is going to drop a little. I don't live somewhere that's super cold at night so the temps don't drop that much. And here is what I want to know, I ordered 50 packs of small adult mice online but the order doesn't get here until Thursday, but in the same time I don't wanna starve him so I went to petsmart bought him small rat. When I first time offered it to him, he wasn't interested and when I was trying to use rodent to touch his body he got real scared. So then I felt the rodent in the tub for half of hour see if he would eat it. But no so I had to throw it away(I didn't know you could leave it in there for over night waste of money for me lol). So I was like maybe he doesn't recognize the rat as food and it only eats mice, or probably hes under stress cuz I just got him not too long ago and the time I was feeding him was in afternoon maybe it wasn't late enough for him. So couple days after, I went to the reptile store to ask for advice, and the person was like we feed our snakes with both rat and mice just depends on the size, and he said that majority of ball pythons eat both of them its going to be rare if one only eats rat or mice. He also tells me that once its thawed throw it under the heat lamp for 5 mins to warm it up, and I showed him a picture of my snake and he was like "from the picture I could definity tell you he was eating really good" and if he continue not to eat for the next couple weeks bring him back. After that I was thinking maybe I should try again tonight, because I had this feeling he's gonna eat tonight. So I waited until 11pm thawed the rat and put it under the heat lamp, I wiggled in front of him and again he got scared and went back to hide. So I was like I'm just gonna leave it in there for over night since I know I could. So the next morning I woke up and it was gone! I was thrilled !!!! So here comes my question, is my ball python scared of me or he prefer me to leave the food in there so he could eat alone? So apparently, he eats both mice and rat and that's really good! because I don't have to switch him anyway. And here's a sidenote, everytime I pick him up he would make noises and buff up he obviously don't want me to pick him up.