Good Dogs, Bad Plans

The job posting said "e;Canine Wellness Coordinator."e; The résumé said "e;failed startup founder."e; Marco Reyes figured it was a match.After watching his wellness-tech company collapse in the headlines and his marriage quietly dissolve in the aftermath, Marco has spent fourteen months boxing up his life and storing it in places he doesn't visit. When his father forwards him a listing for a holistic dog spa in San Jose—chakra-aligned hydrotherapy, crystal singing bowls, a golden retriever who sits in on interviews—Marco applies on impulse, lists I like dogs as a qualification, and does not examine this decision too closely.In Melbourne, Danny Callahan has just walked out of a classroom for the last time after fourteen years of teaching middle school history, carrying a handmade farewell card and the weight of a life that has been entirely, admirably, exhaustingly for other people. He has a plan: go home, rest, figure out what he actually wants. And call Marco. He's been meaning to call Marco for six years, which is exactly long enough to have been meaning to do something.Then his mother leaves a job listing on the kitchen table with a Post-it note.The listing is for Serenity Paws, a holistic pet retreat in California. The same one. On the same start date.Neither of them reads the employee directory before arriving.What follows is not a collision—it's something more uncomfortable than that. It's two people who know each other's coffee orders, who carry fifteen years of unsaid things into a supply closet and a shared Saturday session, who are being professionally, carefully, determinedly fine about all of it. It's Priya the Senior Animal Care Coordinator filing their situation under none of my business, which is her heading for everything that's about to become her business. It's Biscotti the golden retriever, nine years old and silver-muzzled and more perceptive than anyone on staff, watching the whole thing from his sun patch and finding it, on balance, satisfactory.Good Dogs, Bad Plans is a slow-burn, second-chance love story about two people who are very good at being there for everyone else, and the one place absurd enough, quiet enough, and warm enough to make them figure out how to be there for each other.For readers who love witty, emotionally intelligent romance with found family, a touch of workplace comedy, and a deeply lovable dog.